The Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society
Text has been scanned with OCR and is therefore searchable. The format on screen does not conform with the printed Chelys. The original page numbers have been inserted within square brackets: e.g. [23]. Where necessary footnotes here run in sequence through the whole article rather than page by page and replace endnotes. The pages labelled ‘The Viola da Gamba Society Provisional Index of Viol Music’ in some early volumes are omitted here since they are up-dated as necessary as The Viola da Gamba Society Thematic Index of Music for Viols, ed. Gordon Dodd and Andrew Ashbee, 1982-, available on CD-ROM. Each item has been bookmarked: go to the ‘bookmark’ tab on the left. To avoid problems with copyright, photographs have been omitted.
Contents of Volume 21 (1992)
Margaret Urquhart article 1 Was Christopher Simpson a Jesuit? Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 3-26
Pamela Willetts article 2 John Lilly: a redating Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 27-38
Annette Otterstedt, trans. Hans Reiners article 3 A sentimental journey through Germany and England Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 39-56
Adrian Rose article 4 Rudolph Dolmetsch (1906-1942): the first modern viola da gamba virtuoso Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 57-78 John Catch article 5 Bach’s violetta: a conjecture Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 79-80
David Pinto book review 1 Andrew Ashbee, The Harmonious Musick of John Jenkins, vol. 1 Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 81-85
Peter Holman book review 2 Watkins Shaw, The Succession of Organists of the Chapel Royal and the Cathedrals of England and Wales from c. 1538 Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 85-87
Peter Holman book review 3 M. Alexandra Eddy, The Rost Manuscript of Seventeenth-Century Music: A Thematic Catalog Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 87-89
Michael Fleming book review 4 Kevin Coates, Geometry, Proportion and the Art of Lutherie Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 90-91
Andrew Ashbee music review 1 John Coprario, Consort Music in two-, three- and four-parts Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 92-93
Ian Payne music review 2 Eight Consort Songs by William Byrd Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 93-95
Alison Crum music review 3 The Collected Works of Henry Butler Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 95-96
Ian Gammie book review 4 Margaret Panofsky, Bass Viol Technique Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 96-97
Ian Gammie music review 4 First Solos for Treble, Tenor & Bass Viols (ed. Crum) Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), p. 97
Hazelle Miloradovitch book review 5 Carol Herman, Alphabet Soup, a tablature primer for viols Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 98-99 Rita Morey music review 5 John Ward, Five In Nomines for Four Viols Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), p. 99
Christopher D. S. Field music review 6 John Jenkins: Two Fantasia-Suites for Treble Viol (Violin), Bass Viol and Organ Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 99-101
Julie Anne Sadie music review 7 Étienne Moulinié, Fantaises à quatre pour les violes Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 101-102
Julie Anne Sadie music review 8 Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite in g Minor (BMV 993) Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), p. 102
Julie Anne Sadie music review 9 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Due sonate a viola da gamba e basso Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), p. 103
Peter Walls music review 10 Chamber Music of the 18th Century for Lute, Transverse flute, Oboe, Violin, Cello & Viola da Gamba Chelys, vol. 21 (1992), pp. 103-104 Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
[3] WAS CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON A JESUIT?
MARGARET URQUHART By the autumn of 1642, the Duke of Newcastle, commander of the northern army of Charles I with his lieutenant general, Sir William Davenant, had established his headquarters at York, where he pursued the arts of war in courtly style. There had been a considerable rallying of support from the Yorkshire Roman Catholic gentry for the king’s cause and among Newcastle’s family retinue was a Christopher Simpson, designated quartermaster in a troop of horse led by Lord Henry Cavendish, the younger son of the duke who was a boy of twelve at the time.1 This well educated man in his thirties came from a yeoman Catholic family based near Egton in North Yorkshire, but what qualities and experience did he possess which prompted the duke to select him for such closeness to his son? When examining the types of education which were available to a Catholic boy of his status, a major hypothesis developed. Had Simpson been educated abroad and if so, was there the possibility that he had been trained for the priesthood? The English Jesuit records revealed that there was a Christopher Sampson or Simpson whose time scale and general background merited investigation.2 In presenting the results, of this research, the Jesuit and the musician are brought together for the first time and the question posed as to whether they could have been one and the same man.3 The family background of Christopher Simpson (m) The Harleian pedigree, ‘The Armes and Creast of Christopher Simpson of Hunthouse’, has provided a source for Simpson’s (m) family connections, but as it will emerge, the tree is far from complete and at times at variance with the facts.4 The arms were not registered with the College of Arms, nor- does the family appear in the Heralds’ Visitations of the period. They are identical to those of another Simpson family of Leeds (without the crest) but other Yorkshire Simpsons with similar arms and crests can be found at Edgeston,
1 M. Urquhart, `Sir Robert Bolles Bt. of Scampton', Chelys, 16 (1987), 16. 2 G. Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, 2 (1975), 278. 3 Since there are four Christopher Simpsons involved, they will be defined as follows: Christopher Simpson (f) - the father of the musician. Christopher Simpson (m) - the musician. Christopher Simpson (S. J.) - the Jesuit. Christopher Simpson (n) - the nephew of the musician. 4 GB-Lbl Harl. MS 5800, f. 21; see Appendix 1. A copy of the pedigree can be found in G.W. Boddy's article (see note 6). Appendix I gives a summary and notes on additional findings. Arms: Per bend Sable and Or, a lion rampant counterchanged. Crest: Out of a mural crown Azure, a demi-lion guardant per pals Or and Sable, holding a sword. Motto: Nulla lux sine umbra. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
Rydale and South Duffield. None of the latter appear to have had any connection with the Simpsons of Nottinghamshire, Richmond or Egton. The pedigree covers the generations from Simpson’s (m) great- grandfather, Christopher Simpson of Nottinghamshire, to the descendants of his brother, Stephen. Sirnpson’s (m) grandfather, George Simpson of Richmond, who married Elizabeth White of Skinningrove, has proved to be difficult to trace. He may have been a George Simpson of Richmond, who died in 1600 in the parish of Ormesby in Cleveland who had a wife Elizabeth, who died in 1604.5 Christopher Simpson (f), described in the recusant returns as a cordwainer or shoemaker, was, in fact, the actor-manager of a group of players based at [4] Egton which was largely contained by family ties and achieved a certain notoriety for performances on several tours of the great houses of the area. His career can be traced in recusant records from 1595 when he was a boy actor of fifteen. He escaped from arrest in 1609, was fined in 1612 and denounced as a rogue by the Lord Chief Justice in 1614.6 The Egton players had the protection of Catholic land- owning families of the area, Sir Richard Chomley being time their chief patron. Katherine Radcliffe of Ugthorpe, a notable recusant and harbourer of priests, had, as we shall see, an even more significant connection with the Simpsons.7 The earliest date which can he found for the marriage of Christopher Simpson (f) to Dorothy Pearson of Rosedale is 1604 when they were in Egton suspected of having been married in secret.8 The pedigree describes Simpson (f) as being of Westonby which was a vill of Egton situated somewhat remotely on high ground about half a mile to the north of Egton and at the same distance to the south of Ugthorpe. Christopher Simpson (m) gave his place of origin as Hunt House, a hill farm near Goathland on the edge of Wheeldale Moor. The farm had been left to Katherine Radcliffe by her father and when she died in 1614/5, she left it to her cousin, Ralph Harding of Hollingside who had
5 Parish Records of Ormesby, Cleveland, Cleveland County Archives. 6 G.W. Boddy, `Players of Interludes in North Yorkshire in the early seventeenth century', North Yorkshire County Record Office Journal, 3 (April 1976), 95. 7 Katherine Radcliffe of Ugthorpe (c. 1560-1614/5) was the only daughter of Roger Radcliffe and his first wife, Dorothy Bigod of Mulgrave. Katherine and Ralph Harding of Hollingside, Co. Durham who were first cousins, their grandfather having been William Radcliffe of Tunstall, Co. Durham, lived at Ugthorpe from about 1582. They may have been married in secret. Katherine was convicted in 1590 and her estate seized for her failure to pay various fines. In 1593, by the intervention and appeal of her friends at court and upon payment of two-thirds of her fine, she was released from York Castle but limited to residence at Ugthorpe. She continued to support impoverished relatives and to shelter priests, despite the continued presence of Privy Council spies. A priest's hole can still be seen in the outer buildings at Ugthorpe, which is now a farm. 8 E. Peacock, A List of the Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604 (1872), 97-100. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
been a resident at Ugthorpe for a considerable period.9 Katherine also left a Christopher Simpson twenty shillings. How and when Simpson (f) acquired the lease of Hunt House is not clear. A Christopher Simpson was credited with holding the intake of three acres in 1628 and it remained in the family until 1720.10 Thought to have been a place of refuge for priests and recusants, Hunt House may have been part of an underground net-work which included Ugthorpe and Grosmount Priory.11 With its remote setting and ease of access to the moors and the sea, Hunt House was ideal for the purpose. It still stands today, having been rebuilt in 1685 by Christopher Simpson, the nephew of the musician. His initials and those of his wife, Martha, are carved above the door. According to the pedigree, Christopher Simpson (m) was the heir and the oldest of six children of whom five were sons: Harleian Pedigree Christopher 1 Stephen 2 Thomas 3 William 4 Elinor - Unnamed 5 It is curious, however, that the traditional pattern for naming sons has not been followed: Traditional Pattern for naming sons Paternal grandfather George 1 Maternal grandfather William 2 Father Christopher 3
[5] The method of recording children with their parents in the recusant records varied considerably from the anonymous ‘a son unbaptised’ to the name and approximate age such as ‘above four’ or ‘above five’. Much depended on the zeal of local officials for the task, some being fined for failure to make the required returns. Between the years 1611 and 1616, the Egton recusants, a large and resistant group, came under closer scrutiny. There is one record of Christopher with his parents in 1611. His age is not given and he is
9 The will of Katherine Radcliffe, 33/616, Borthwick Institute, York. James Crosby and his wife, also mentioned in Katherine Radcliffe's will, had been tenants of Hunt House from c. 1595 to 1614/5. Ralph Harding died in 1621/2. His will has not been found. 10 A. Hollings, Goatland - The .Story of a Moorland Village (Whitby, 1971). PRO Duchy of Lancaster, Parliamentary Surveys, The Manor of Pickering, 15 July, 1651, E 317/York/42, date on the lease, Jan. 2nd, 1628 11 G.W. Boddy, ‘Catholic Missioners at Grosmount Priory’, Northern Catholic History, nos. 19 and 20 (1984). Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
the only child mentioned.12 There is no further trace of him, but his brother Stephen appears alone in 1626 as ‘the son of Christopher Simpson’. Thomas and Stephen are listed in 1627, Elinor in 1632 with Stephen and finally Stephen appears alone in 1641 as ‘Stephen Simpson, yeoman’ with his wife, Alice.13 In order to consider the relative ages of the Simpson children, their place in the pedigree, the suggested traditional order and the various entries in the recusant records, it is necessary to suggest dates of birth, based on the assumption that their parents were married about 1611. Harleian order Recorded Traditional order Recorded 1 b.c . 1602 Christopher 1611 George (unnamed) - 2 b. c.1604 Stephen 1626 William - 3 b.c. 1606 Thomas 1627 Christopher 1611 4 b. c. 1608 William - Stephen 1626 5 b. c. 1610 Unnamed - Thomas 1627 6 b. c. 1612 Elinor* 1632 Elinor 1632
*The pedigree does not indicate the position of Elinor in relation to her brothers, but the records would suggest that she was the youngest. If the Harleian order is correct, Christopher would have been nine in 1611 with a date of birth c. 1602. In the traditional version, he would have been five with a date of birth c. 1606. Stephen and Thomas were described as the sons of Christopher Simpson yeoman, the former in 1626 and 1627, the latter in 1627. Did this mean that they were still under the age of twenty-one at the time? If so, the traditional order would seem better than the Harleian. The children’s escaping from the net of officialdom for so long and their parents’ disappearance from the records after 1616, could be accounted for, if they had taken the oath and conformed for a period, as some of their Simpson relatives did, only to return to the records later. Since the father was a wanted man, they may have been forced to move away from the area. It does not seem possible that they could have maintained such a low profile at Westonby between 1616 and 1626. In the pedigree, Christopher is described as `sonne and heire’ of his father which indeed he was at the time of writing whether the
12 ‘Register of Recusants, 1611-1641’. Quarter Sessions Records (unpublished) QSC (Mic. 1827) f. 12. North Yorkshire Record Office (NYRO), Northallerton. 13 All references to the recusant records unless otherwise defined can be found in the ‘Quarter Sessions Records’, North Riding Record Society. I, 1605-1612 (1884); 11, 1612- 1620 (1884); III, 1621-1630 (1885). Stephen and his wife can be found in QSC (Mic. (1827) f. 55. NYRO, Northallerton. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
first-born son or the third. The purpose of this document appears to have been to make clear Christopher’s entitlement to the lease of Hunt House with Stephen and his family as his heirs and successors. Distortion in favour of those who survived of the six children is a possibility. Christopher knew much of the detail of his family background; yet he does not appear with his brothers and sister on their [6] home ground in adult life. The pedigree which remains the chief source for these relationships, can be given an approximate dating of after 1640 and before 1668, that is, after the birth of at least four of Stephen’s children but before his death. It has not been possible to arrive at a date for the death of Christopher Simpson (f). Boddy was of the opinion that he was buried at Egton on l September 1646 but there was yet another Christopher Simpson in Egton at that time with a wife, Ann. The last entry for Christopher Sirnpson (f) in the records is 1616 although he is mentioned in connection with the children in 1626 and 1627. A reference to Dorothy Simpson as the wife of Christopher Simpson in the will of Isobel North of Westonby of 1624, suggests that he may have been alive then.14 With warrants out for his arrest, he was doubtless forced into a life of hiding from the law but when his hazardous career came to an end remains a mystery. His wife, Dorothy, was buried at Egton on 28 September 1628. Stephen Simpson, who married Alice Launde, the daughter of Ralph Launde of Egton, died in 1668 and was survived by several children, the eldest of whom, Christopher (n), was the heir to the musician’s estate. According to the pedigree. Stephen’s children were Christopher, Stephen, Edward and Alice. Their uncle’s will, however, provided for two nieces and a Mary Simpson who was a witness to her father’s will, may have been the second daughter.15 Another omission from the pedigree is William who was one of the executors named by his uncle, Stephen, who described himself in his will as being of Westonby, appears to have had no connection with Hunt House. That only gathers strength ,with his son, Christopher, and his descendants. The early education of the children of the Egton recusants during the first decade of the seventeenth century- was in the hands of William Postgate who lived there with his daughter, Jane.16 The Postgates were related by marriage to the Simpsons as according to the pedigree Robert, the brother of Christopher (f), had married Alice, the daughter of Ralph Postgate. Nicholas Postgate, the son of Margaret and James Postgate, a secular priest of distinction who was executed at York in 1674, is thought to have been one of the Eg,ton Players in 1616 when his age was given as thirteen. In 1621 he went to France to study at the
14 The will of Isabel North of Westonbie, 38/273, Borthwick Institute, York. 15 The will of Stephen Simpson, 49/118, Borthwick Institute, York. 16 E. Peacock, A List of the Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604 (1872), 97-98. See also Appendix IId, The Postgates. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
English College at Douai. There must have been some means of selecting and preparing gifted boys for education abroad, perhaps in the household of a Catholic patron who had a resident priest, where they would pass relatively unnoticed as pages or singing boys. Thorough search has revealed nothing of Christopher Simpson (m) after 1611 in North Yorkshire. His appearance at York in support of the king’s cause it 1642 With other Yorkshire recusants such as members of the Markenfield, Pullen and Hardcastle families who were the officers of his troop, suggests a connection with one of these men but none has been found. Simpson’s (m) arrival at Scampton, the manor of Sir Robert Bolles after 1645 but before 1649, has already [7] been established. It was there during a period of ten years or more that his musical activities and writing of books developed. When it was safe for him to do so, he emerged c. 1660 in London still under the protection of Sir Robert Bolles. He was a witness to Sir Robert’s will and codicil in 1663. Sir John Bolles and John Pynsent, his father in law, were then concerned with his welfare. His own will, written in Lincoln but proved in London in July 1669, reveals the weakness in the once firm hand. Every possible source in Lincoln, Lincolnshire and London has been searched for the place and date of his burial without result. He requested in his will that he ‘be buried according to the piety and discretion of such friends as are present at my death’. One of the witnesses to the will was a Robert Dickenson who may have been a young Lincolnshire Jesuit of the same name.17 The profound silence on Simpson’s (m) death is very puzzling when one considers his distinction and his admiring friends. Christopher Simpson S.J. The Jesuit Mission of 1597 met with disaster in many ways, these first missioners were unprepared for the dangers which had to be faced and fell quickly to government agents and spies. Survival for any length of time depended on acceptance of a life below the surface of events protected by the Carbolic faithful, with new identities in safe places where the work could be done. Gradually a more efficient network of support developed in England and by the second decade of the century, the underground life outlined in Henry More’s Modus vivendi Hominum S.J., was reasonably safe, detection and persecution being less vigorous after the accession of Charles I.18 The establishment of the colleges at Douai and St Omer provided better educational opportunities for boys from Catholic families, many of whom returned to England as priests. The chief source for the boys of St Omer College who went on to study in Rome, is the Responsa
17 Robert Dickenson entered the Society of Jesus in 1669 at the age of twenty-seven. He was born in Lincoln but attached to the Devon Mission. 18 B. Bassett, S.J., The English Jesuits (1967). I am indebted to this author for the general background to the English Jesuits of the period. More's rules will be found in translation on pp. 140-42. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
Scholarum of the English College there.19 On entry they were required to answer certain questions about their family background and education. These vary considerably in precise detail, often presenting a studied guardedness with aliases in many cases. Christopher Simpson said that his name was Christopher Sampson but this document is endorsed ‘Christopher Simpson alias Sampson’ on the reverse side. In the Liber Ruber which gives a brief account of each man’s time in the College, his begins ‘Christopher Simpson (vero nomine Sampsona)’ while in the margin the signature reads `ita est Christopherus Simpsonus manu propria’.20 Later documents refer consistently to this man as `Simpson’, the most important being the ones in which he takes his four vows as a Jesuit. 21 Aliases do persist in the records as in the case of Richard Danby of the Durham Mission who was entered in the lists for some years as John Riley. The difference of one letter between ‘Simpson’ and ‘Sampson’ may have been discarded early, for Simpson was a very common name in Yorkshire and may have been considered sufficient protection. Although entered in the various [8] published records as ‘Sampson’, there is a good case for thinking that this has been wrong, and that ‘Simpson’ was this Jesuit’s name. In his Responsa Christopher Simpson (S. J.) did not give the names of his parents; indeed only one of the men of his year of 1625 did so. He said he was twenty years of age as far as he knew and that he had been reared in the town of Upsall in Yorkshire. There are two Upsalls in this county, neither of which could he described even as small towns—one in the parish of Ormesby in Cleveland, the other near Upsall Castle which is to the north of Thirsk. The castle was a known refuge for priests who had the protection of the Constable family. A John Robinson S. J. who arrived in Rome in 1616, said that he had come from Upsall and that his mother had been imprisoned for sheltering priests. Simpson said that his father had been dead for some time but that his mother was alive and had brought up six children with the help of others.He was the youngest but one and had been educated in town schools often with a gap of six months between sessions. He then went overseas to the College of St Omer. His age on entry to this college may have been fifteen and his date of birth c. 1605. After St Omer, he pursued a course of studies for the priesthood at the English College in Rome, advancing from sub-deacon to deacon. He was ordained in St John Lateran on 26 August 1629. On 9 September 1632 he left Rome with William Owen alias Rees, a Welsh Jesuit, for the English Noviciate at Watten which was about ten miles to the north of
19 ‘The Responsa Scholarum of the English College, Rome, part II', Catholic Record Society, 55 (1963) 382. 20 Liber Ruber, Library of the English College, Rome. 21 Catalogi Personarum in Provincia Anglia, 1634-1674, Archives of the Society of Jesus (ASJ), Rome. Ass. Germaniae, Professi 4 Votorum, 1646-1648, 430-431, ASJ, Rome. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
St Omer. They did not reach Watten together however. Owen arrived in 1632 but Simpson’s entry was not recorded until 27 May 1634.22 At Watten a preparatory year of spiritual exercises and fitness tests was obligatory. It is not clear when Simpson (S. J.) returned to England. The record of 1639 state that he had been five years in the Society, four years in the Mission and that he was thirty-four years of age. His name (Simpson) appears regularly in the records of the "Mission of St John, Durham from 1639 onwards when he was tenth in a group of eleven priests. By 1642 he had advanced rapidly to be the superior of eleven priests. It is possible therefore that he had five rears of study at \\’atten (1634-39) before returning to England. He took his first vows and became a professed father of the Society of Jesus on 23 October 1648. The English Jesuits were organised in geographical areas or ‘residences" such as the Residence of St John, Durham of which Christopher Simpson (S.J.) was a member. Because of the hazardous nature of their working conditions, the residences were largely nominal for regular meetings must have been extremely difficult to arrange.. The English Mission had become a vice-province in 1619 and a full province in 1623 with twelve residences and a noviciate in Staffordshire. An efficient system of letters was used between the various superiors and their provincial who also corresponded regularly with Rome. The French, Spanish and other Catholic embassies were in general sympathetic to Jesuit interests. The Spanish Embassy alone survived during the Commonwealth, under the constant surveillance of government agents.23 Simpson (S.J.) probably worked [9] within the area of his ‘residence’ using safe houses, attending meetings with his brethren when he could safely do so until the outbreak of the Civil Wars. No further evidence of this Iesuit’s activities has emerged, apart from a letter written by the English provincial, Fr George Gray, to the Reverend Father General in Rome, which is dated 3 March 1674 and contains a paragraph of obituary about Simpson. He is there described as a truly distinguished man in character and work who had been the Superior in Northumbria for about twenty years. He had founded a school for boys of noble families, which he had been able to keep going up to that very time. His soundness of character had been appreciated by heretics (protestants) who employed him to educate their sons. The letter confirms the dates of his entry into the noviciate at Watten and of his becoming a professed father. It concludes by stating that Simpson
22 Ang1.11, Catal. Breves, 1632-83, f. 29v, ASJ, Rome. 23 T. McCoog, M.S.J., `The Establishment of the English Province of the Society of Jesus', Recusant History, 17/2 (Oct. 1984), 123-39 and `The Finances of the English Province of the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth Century', Recusant History, 18/1 (May 1986). Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
had died on that day, namely 3 March 1674 aged sixty-eight.24 The relevant catalogues of the English Mission in Rome reveal that Simpson’s health had been failing since 1665 and confirm the date of his death. This letter will be discussed in more detail later on. Efforts to find a Christopher Simpson or Sampson in Upsall have not met with much success for we do not have the names of his parents and little chance therefore of finding anything in parish registers, wills or recusant records. While the name Simpson is a common one, Sampson has been found to be much less so. Morever, in the Cecil Papers of 1582, a list of recusants at Upsall (near Thirsk) include a William Samson who was a household servant and brewer to Sir Henry Constable, with a wife, Ellen. This Ellen or Elinor Sampson of Upsall can he further traced in 1606, 1612 (when she was indicted for brewing), 1614 (when she was described as a widow) and also in 1616.25 A William Sampson of Upsall died on 27 March 1609/10.26 From these meager facts, it can be deduced that Elinor continued with her husband’s occupation after his death. She was charged with this and a warrant issued to take her bound in 1614.27 At some point before July 1616 she moved to Ugthorpe, doubtless for her own safety for she appears in a list of very familiar names in the household of the late Katherine Radcliffe. 28 There was a William Sampson who had three children who were baptized between 1611 and 1616 at South Kilvington (Upsall), none of whom was named Christopher. Catholic baptisms were usually held in secret and her age of forty in 1614 would suggest she may have been toot old to be the mother of these children.29 Al1 one can say is that Elinor Sampson can he connected with both Upsall Castle and Ugthorpe and that she might have had a role in the underground organisation. Simpson (S.J.) said that he had been educated in various town schools. This at first suggests a certain moving about from one place to another as well as the difficulties a Catholic boy would have experienced in being accepted in the town schools of the area at that time. The statement is really too vague to be helpful and as we have seen, neither of the Upsalls could he called a town. John Robinson, also from Upsall, said that he had been educated by various Jesuits [10] and those they recommended. Of an older generation than Simpson, his Responsa are less guarded and would seem to convey a more accurate description of the pattern of education available to a boy preparing for
24 Letter from Father Gray to the Father General, Stonyhurst College Library, Ang1.V. 77. 25 25. ‘Miscellanea’, Catholic Record Society, 53 (1961), 24. 26 The parish registers of South Kilvington, North Yorkshire Record Office, Northallerton. 27 ‘Quarter Sessions Records', op cit., I, 262 and II, 57. 28 ibid.,II, 142. 29 The parish registers of South Kilvington, North Riding Record Office, Northallerton. These children were named Anna (1601), Joseph (1602) and Frances (1606). Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
entry to the college at St Omer. Code words were used and `Upsall’ may have represented this type of education. Returning now to Father Gray’s letter of 3 March 1674, there are some points which must be made. First, Christopher Simpson was, clearly a distinguished Jesuit who merited a goodly paragraph of obituary. Secondly, Father Gray was not entirely accurate in writing that Simpson (S.J.) had been the superior of his mission for about twenty years. He took charge for the first time in 1642 and held that post until 1645. There followed a period when he was in second place, perhaps as the result of activities during the Wars. He became the Superior once more in 1651 for one year, after which there is a gap until 1656 when he again took charge until 1672. Since he was described as `infirmae’ from 1665 onwards, his work must have been restricted after that date. Certainly he held leading roles in the mission but he was Superior only for ten years. This underlines the generality of the letter’s style and the danger of drawing conclusions from it. Turning now to a third point, Simpson’s work as a teacher is given prominence. There may well have been a school within the residential area which he founded and helped to preserve until his death providing the type of education described by John Robinson. The next sentence about his teaching of the sons of heretics is very interesting for it was surely a very unusual and dangerous activity for a Jesuit. What were the conditions that ensured that he could do this? A different identity which would stand up to inspection and some very sympathetic Protestant friends would certainly be required. The last point which must be raised about Father Gray’s letter is that he apparently was writing from London on the very day that Simpson (S.J.) had died. Therefore according, to Father Gray, Simpson died in London on 3 March 1674. It has not been possible to find further evidence of his death. There have been some organised means of dealing, with the interment of a Jesuit who had escaped detection. Several were buried in St Ethelreda’s in Holborn and there may have been other graves within the sympathetic embassies. Father Gray’s records correspond to those of Rome which, of course, he or his predecessor had been sending there. If they are to be accepted as a true account, then Simpson (S. J.) was born c. 1605 and died in 1674. To sum up—this man’s career can be traced in Jesuit letters and documents but his family background and missionary activities remain veiled. The vagueness and lack of definition were a necessary form of protection as were the aliases and code words such as ‘Mrs Durham’ which represented the Durham Mission. The unfortunate task: of conveying in a short letter, which might well have been intercepted, the conditions prevailing in England and their effect upon the work of an individual priest, must have been formidable. Father Gray did not conceal [11] that Simpson (S.J.) had taught the sons of Protestant noblemen. Indeed he considered it to be a tribute to the man’s strength Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
of character. Simpson (m) had also taught the sons of protestant noblemen, namely Sir John Bolles and his nephew, Sir John St Barbe. This coincidence in a very unusual activity for a Catholic, far less a Jesuit, suggests an area of closeness which should not be overlooked The English Jesuit College of St Omer By the second decade of the seventeenth century the English Jesuit College of St Omer had already established a considerable reputation and was host to many important visitors to the city. The private visit of Sir George Chaworth during his 1623 embassy to the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of Austria and daughter of Philip II of Spain, produced a remarkably appreciative report. Even the official condemnation of the college is tempered by his personal sadness that such fine young Englishmen should be in betrayal of their country: 30 But the most remarkable thing; in St Omer, and wch most concerneth us, ys ye College of Jesuits there, which is I thinke, ye best ordered in ye world. At my being, there there there were 140 youths of England who renounced theyr names, and I fear nation and nature of Enshmen. It was a pittie to see ym (for they were the finest youths I ever sawe) that they should be bold traytors, but excepting their religion, they are the strictect, orderlyest, and best bredd in the world. I came here privately to a comedie of they’re acting, called Spitticus, but they instantly knew me and gave me great respect. The Rector told me he had sent 50 fyner and ryper than those were, ye last years halfe to Rome, halfe to Salamanca. He sayde that that house had not one pence certain revenue to live on, but subsisted only on charitie from Engd. He sayde that for meate, teaching, and all thinges, they do demand but 20li a year for one youth. I saw ym at supr in excel t order, ye Rector desiring a theame fro’ me for ym to dispute on extempore, I giving ym whether libertie was better than restraint, they attended instantly, and first dyd dispute in Greeke and then in Latine verie elegantly. The school’s prestige in classical studies, particularly in Greek, had developed strongly under the first Rector, Gilles Schondonck, the boys taking part regularly in public oration and debate. Philippe Dentier, who succeeded Schondonck in 1620, shared his educational aims not only in the importance of the classical training but in musical and dramatic performances which were also much admired.31 The provision for these subjects was excellent, the school possessing a fine collection of musical instruments and two theatres, one large and one small.32
30 Losely papers, L.M. 132/9, Guildford Muniment Room. See also the version in Alfred Kempe's The Losely Manuscripts and other rare documents, Henry VIII to James 1 (1836). 1 am grateful to Lady Susi Jeans for this source which can be found in a letter which she wrote to Mr P. Bougard, Archives du Pas-de-Calais, Arras on 4 November, 1983, I. J. 1334. 31 H. Chadwick, S. J., From Saint-Omers to Stonyhurst (1962). 32 Prospectus Collegi Anglorum Audomarensis Societatis Jesu, 43251 Bottel 4, 98-5, No. 226, Bibliotheque municipale de Saint-Omer. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
There were four rooms for rehearsal, a daily period of music of thirty minutes and individual lessons which could be had by arrangement with the Rector. A resident dramatist, Joseph Simon wrote many plays for the boys in which music and ballet played an important part.33 The boys had a long day from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. but the balance between sedentary and recreational studies was obviously good. There were occasional holidays with an extra hour in bed, also walks in the country and sports. [12] Music, of course, featured in the church services, particularly on festal days, such as I.a solemnité de la canonisation de leur Sts fondateurs of 1622 which was one of many public celebrations which engaged the attention of Jean Hendricq, a citizen of St Omer:" Estans venus proche le college des peres jesuites anglois se presenta contre leur Eglise un grand theatre et deux autres plus bas remplis de grand nombre des chantres et musicians chantans et accordans leur voie avec leur instrumens en grande melodie. (The procession having arrived at the English College of the Jesuit fathers, there was to be obsewrved close by their church, a great stage and two others at a lower level filled with a large number of singers and musicians, singing and marching their part(s) to their instruments in great euphony.) Music, of course, featured in the church services, particularly on festal days, such as La solemnite de la canonisation de leur Sts fondateurs of 1622 which was one of many public celebrations which engaged the attention of Jean Hendricq, a citizen of St Omer:34 Estans venus proche le college des peres jesuites anglois se presenta contre leur Eglise un grand theatre et deux autres plus bas remplis de grand nombre des chantres et musicians chantans et accordans leur voie avec leur instrumens en grande melodie. (The processions) having arrived at the English College of the Jesuit fathers, there was to be observed close by their church, a great stage and two others at a lower level filled with a large number of singers and musicians, singing and matching their part(s) to their instruments in great euphony.) On another occasion in 1623 a performance of High Mass in the church was accompanied by violins and organ but unfortunately Hendricq does not say who the composers of such works might have been. The Italian concertato style combining voices and instruments with chordal accompaniment could be heard in the Cathedral and other churches of St Omer at this time and had obviously spread rapidly to Flanders. In such a centre of musical advancement and excellence, the highly gifted in music would have flourished. The encouragement
33 P. Delattre (with collaborators), Les establishments des Jesuites en France depuis quatre siecles, IV (Enghien/Wetteren, 1956). 34 Recueil historique de Jean Hendricq, bourgeois de Saint-Omer, Tom. III 273, Bibliotheque municipale de Saint-Omer. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
of individual skill and the constant exposure to performances of both sacred and secular works in the developing styles of the Italian baroque and the French ballet-de-cour could well have produced a musician of Simpson’s (m) calibre. It is most unlikely that he could have acquired his depth of education, both general and musical, by piecemeal contact with returning priests to the refuges of North Yorkshire. If Simpson (m) had been educated abroad, the English Jesuit College of St Omer would have been the perfect setting for him. Tabular summary of the lives of Simpson (m) and Simpson (S. J.) Simpson (m) Simpson (S.J.) Date of birth Unknown Unknown
Either c. 1602 or c. 1606 c. 1605 Place of birth Unknown Unknown Father at Westonby near Egton in Said he came from N. Yorkshire Upsall. Father Christopher Simpson Cordwainer Unknown, said in 1625 and actor-Manager of the Egton that he had players b c. 1580, date of death been dead for some time. unknown but after 1616. Recusant. Mother Dorothy Pearson of Rosedale, N. Unknown, said she was Yorkshire, d. 1628, Recusant. alive in 1625. Grandparents George and Elizabeth Simpson. Unknown. May have died at Upsall, Cleveland in 1601 and 1605. Brothers and sisters One of six children. Set in the said he was one of pedigree as the son and heir but the children and the traditional naming of sons youngest but one* suggests that he may have been the third son. Only Stephen his younger brother survived to maturity and lived at Westonby. Education Unknown but of considerable depth. Said he had been educated in various town schools. The English Jesuit College of St Omer c. 1620-25. The English College in Rome 1625-1632. The English Jesuit Noviciate at Watten 1634-39(?) Career Unknown until 1642 when c. 1639 in the English Quarter-master in a troop of horse Jesuit Mission of St John, in the northern army of the Duke of Durham with a leading role Newcastle. In retreat at Scampton, and a reputation as a Lincolnshire with his patron, Sir Robert teacher. Said to have Bolles after 1645 but before 1649. taught the sons Engaged in teaching, composition and of protestant noblemen. the writing of books of musical instruction. Emerged on the London scene c. 1660, still in the protection of the Bolles family. Taught the sons of Protestant noblemen certainly within that family and its relations. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
Death Between May and July 1669 either in Reported to Rome Lincoln or London as 3 March 1674. Place of burial Unknown. Unknown. *Foley’s translation of Simpson’s Responsa states that he (Simpson) was the oldest but one, i.e. ‘,maxima’ rather than `minima’. Since the copy of the document examined was in the hand of a scribe, it could be that Foley had access to yet another copy (H. Foley, `Collectanea’, Records of the English Province of the Society of ,Jesus, 7 (1883), 713). Comments 1. Both men came from the area of North Yorkshire recusancy and can be related, particularly in the case of Simpson (m) to places known to be shelters for incoming priests. 2. Simpson (m) came from educated yeoman stock and was related by marriage to the Postgates, who were of similar status and conviction and produced Fr Nicholas Postgate. 3. The details, although rather general about the parents in the Responsa, could fit both men and there were six children in both families. Simpson’s (m) place in the six is uncertain. 4. The dates of birth could be resolved at c. 16056 if the traditional order is accepted but the dates of death remain a serious discrepancy. 5. The gap in Simpson’s (m) education and early career could be filled by the comparable period in that of Simpson (S. J.) and is compatible with what is known about the social standing and [14] subsequent activities of the musician. The education at the English Jesuit College of St Omer would have provided the opportunity for developing musical ability. 6. Both men had taught the sons of protestant noblemen. European awareness in Simpson’s (m) works 1. The Music Simpson’s (m) musical compositions (with the exception of one song) are scored for solo bass viol, two bass viols or for a variety of treble parts and bass viols accompanied by organ, harpsichord or theorbo.35 Apart from the divisions on basses and the twenty Airs for two trebles and two basses, these works have a trio sonata format of two melody lines supported by a continuo bass.36 The upper parts and the bass are closely related the one to the other, while the underlying harmony is characterised by strong key establishment with frequent modulations, both transitory and cadential. The concerted elements, decorated with suspensions, chromatic rises, sequences and figurative development, often reach great points of drama and display.
35 The lvra viol is used in ‘The Little Consort in 4 Setts’. 36 The 20 Airs for two trebles and two basses lacks the bass continuo part which Eitner recorded as being in the Staats-Bibliothek in Hamburg but has been missing since 1945. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
The basses chosen for the division writing are, in some cases, the Italian Romanesca, Passamezzo and Folia. Others pursue a more individual route, the variations claiming unity with its figures and mood. The first division of the D major set, which is a descant or freely set melodic part, begins with a long high dominant covering four bars of suspended expectation before it descends, imitating the bass, towards a cadence of impressive chords. The first division of the e minor set is no less arresting as it launches the fifth of the bass into richly decorated chords which expose the harmonic possibilities and invert the upward rise of the third of the bass.37 This ability to claim attention in performance by musical means allied to technical confidence, is very marked and conveys a more outward-looking stance than is apparent in the English division writing of his day. Considering next the Airs or dances and the fantasy-suites, it has been suggested that the latter were composed during the Scampton period of the 1650s. The dating of the Airs has proved to be more difficult. Some of them could belong to the pieces which Simpson (m) said he had written for the Duke of Newcastle; that is after 1642 but before 1645.38 The many setts of pavans, galliards, almains, corants, ayres and sarabands are typically English in selection and general style, the almain, for example, having its ancestry in the Elizabethan dance rather than in the French allemande, with its anacrusic openings and imbalance of structure. There is, however, one example of the latter in the dances in tablature and the jeu d’harmonie which Simpson (m) wrote for Sir John St Barbe’s instruction.39 Although the use of the Italian continuo style can be identified in English music as early as 1610, it was not immediately adopted into the practice of instrumental composers, the process of change being eclectic as in the case of [15] William Lawes or more gradual in that of John Jenkins.40 Undoubtedly Simpson (m) owed much to Jenkins for the forms he used in his fantasy-suites `The Months’ and `The Seasons’ but the wider range and finer distinction of moods expressed in rhythmic coherence and expansive melody resulted from his confident grasp of the
37 Sets of divisions in The Division Viol. 38 The dedication to the Duke of Newcastle in A Practical Compendium to Musick (1669), Gordon Dodd noted when compiling his Thematic Index of Music for Viols that the words ‘at Welbeck’ are written on a fragment of the opening of a treble part of this group of Airs. 39 No. 4 of the pieces in tablature inscribed `For Sir John St Barbe' which can be found in the appendices to A Practical Compendium to Musick (3rd ed., 1678). 40 W. Hancock, ‘The origins of the bass continuo in England 1585-1625’ (M. Phil., Nottingham, 1982). Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
fundamentals of the new style.41 Since his compositions can be reasonably placed before 1660 and perhaps even as early as 1642, the question arises as to how he acquired this confidence and why although the forms he used can be related to English roots, his style, which is consistent, has a more European base. 2. The books The successful Grand Tour (1659-1661) of John Bolles, the heir of Sir Robert Bolles, Bt of Scampton, with his tutor, Edward Gelsthorpe, reached a fitting climax when Simpson’s (m) young pupil performed in Rome before a distinguished audience.42 Dr John Alban Gibbes who was present wrote a poem in Bolles’s honour which also included praise for his teacher, Simpson:43 Vividum claro, celebremque alumno Laudo Simpsonum: vaga fama quantum Thessali cultu juvenis magistrum Distulit orbi. I praise Simpson Vigorous and famous because of his celebrated pupil. His reputation has spread abroad And what a mighty teacher it has made known to the whole world Through the training of the Thessalian youth. Gibbes had been a pupil at the English Jesuit College of St Omer, leaving about the time of the arrival of Simpson (S. J.). He was also a frequent visitor to the English College in Rome. Simpson (m) was clearly delighted by his contact through this pupil with the outside `world and had the poem printed in the second edition to The Division Violist, now renamed The Division Viol, which was published in 1665. Indeed, the primary purpose of publishing this edition in Latin translation was to reach the European reader or as Simpson (m) wrote ‘that it might be understood in Foreign Parts; and I have caused its Native Language to be joyned therewith, to make it useful at Home as well as Abroad.’ To have published an edition of an English book in Latin at this time can only be considered to have been very unusual. Simpson (m) did not undertake the work of the translation himself, that being left to
41 See the introduction to the facsimile edition of `The Seasons' by Margaret Urquhart for a fuller discussion of the fantasy-suites (Editions Minkoff, forthcoming) 42 The dedication to Sir John Bolles, Bt in The Division Viol (2nd ed., 1665). Sir John succeeded his father in 1663. 43 The poem which follows the dedication was published again in Carminum Jacobi Alban Ghibbes in 1668 along with odes to the St Omer College, Athanasius Kircher, Charles II, Henrietta Maria, the Duke of Norfolk and many others. Gibbes, an extremely accomplished English academic and poet settled in Rome and held various academic posts there. I am grateful to Dr E. Jenkinson for this and other Latin translations. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
a pupil, William Marsh.44 It is more condensed, impersonal and at variance with the English statements now and then. Simpson (m) had to rethink some of the material for his new readers and may also have had second thoughts on one or two matters as he considered he had improved upon the first edition. One of the most interesting of the variants is the section on ‘Shaked Graces’ in which the text is curtailed, the reader being directed to the signs and their [16] musical interpretations on the next page. The expression in notes of the ornaments were the work of yet another friend of Simpson’s (m), the musician Dr Charles Coleman. As Arnold Dolmetsch asked in 1916, `Why he (Coleman) should have had to advise Simpson on such a subject remains a mystery’.45 Could it have been that Simpson (m) was familiar with Italian and French ornamental signs and knew therefore that his foreign readers would find the musical interpretations easier to follow? Simpson (m) used very few signs in his compositions, preferring to write out the details of trills and turns. On the subject of composing divisions for one viol to a ground in the same work, Simpson (m) mentions two composers whose written divisions could be studied with profit. It cannot be without significance that both of these men lived abroad. Henry Butler had held various posts at the court of Philip IV of Spain from 1623 until his death in 1652. He was an English Catholic nobleman who was granted leave to return to England in 1632 to attend to family matters. His works however are infrequent in English sources.46 Daniel Norcombe was employed by the Archduke Albert of Austria in Brussels from about 1602 to 1647. Only eleven of his pieces appear to have survived in England and ten of these were attached in supplement to copies of The Division Violist.47 Had Simpson (m) been brought copies of their divisions or had he met these men in travels abroad? The most fascinating section in this same book is ‘13. Reflections upon the Concords of Musick’ followed by ‘14, The Analogy of Musical Concords to the Aspect of the Planets’ with its beautiful diagrams. Such ideas were very fashionable at the
44 William Marsh was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge graduating B.A. in 1644-45. Sr John Bolles was also an alumnus of this college between 1656 and 1659. Edward Gelsthorpe, Sir John's tutor, later became the Senior Fellow of Gonville and Caius. 45 A. Dolmetsch, The Interpretation of the Music of the XVII and XVIII Centuries (1916), 97. 46 E. Phillips, ‘The Divisions and Sonatas of Henry Butler’ (Ph.D., Washington University, St Louis, 1982). 47 See Dodd, Thematic Index of Music far Viols. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
time following the publication of the books of Johannes Kepler.48 In the Latin version, Simpson (m) refers to Py_ thagoras and the school of Alexandria of whom Ptolemy was a distinguished member. Ptolemy’s Harmonia (translated by Gogova in 1562) contains a diagram to which Simpson’s (m) can be related in geometry, signs and Latin terms. The chief differences are that Simpson (m) drew his diameter from Cancer to Capricorn not from Libra to Aries, used segments of circles to span the intervals of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th, furnished the diameter with the notes of the Aeolian mode (to include the tuning notes of the viol) and gave great prominence to the triad of which he writes, `This I cannot but think a significant Embleme of that Supreme and incomprehensible Three in One, Governing, Comprising and Disposing the whole Machine of the World with all its included parts, in the most perfect and stupendious Harmony’. His `devout Contemplation’ reflects the mathematical, philosophical and metaphysical studies of the educated man of his day. Indeed, philosophy and metaphysics were among the studies of Simpson (S. J.) at the English College in Rome.49 Important also must be the relationship of Simpson’s argument to the vision of Ignatius Loyola at Manressa when he perceived the Trinity as three keys of a musical instrument.50 Although Loyola did not develop this theme, the three keys have been taken to represent the three separate notes of the triad with the oneness of the three in harmony. Simpson clarifies and [17] emphasises the theme but does not develop it much further. The smaller of the two diagrams which has to be turned to the left to be read, illustrates the triad FAC being repeated throughout the range and clefs pertaining to the bass viol. Taken from the Athanasian Creed, the motto ‘Benedicta sit Sancta et Individua Trinitas’, may have been one of unusual significance for a Jesuit, whose founder maintained a daily devotion to the Trinity throughout his life. There had been quite a number of Jesuit treatises on music beginning with A Brief Introduction to the true Art of Musick by the Irish Jesuit, William Bathe which was published in 1584.51 Others followed by Wolfgang Schvensleder in 1631, Antoine Parran in 1639 and Athanasius Kircher in 1650. Simpson (m) had a copy of Musurgia Universalis for he refers to it twice by page
48 I am grateful to Professor J.D. North for help with the general background to this diagram. 49 H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, 6 (1883), 514. 50 J.C. Olin (ed.), The Autobiography of St Ignatius Loyola, translated by Joseph F. O'Callaghan (New York, 1974), 37, 38. 51 Unfortunately there appears to be no copy of this treatise extant. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
numbers in his A Compendium of Practical Musick. 52 He also had a copy of an anonymous English translation of an early work by Descartes written in 1618 but published in England in 1653.53 The only English theorist quoted by Simpson (m) is Thomas Morley but this is omitted in the Latin version. Instead of giving Morley’s advice about the tenor being `the holding part’, Simpson (m) touches on the historical background of the tenor in the Gregorian Chant and music derived from that source. Both versions stress the change of style in which the bass is to be considered the foundation of all musical composition. A Compendium of Practical Musick, which was an enlarged version of the earlier Principles o f Practical Musick, written for the young Sir John St Barbe, reached nine editions and was in the end more widely distributed in European libraries than The Division Viol. The viol went quickly out of fashion, but his presentation of the elements of music was still highly regarded many years after his death. Sir Roger L’Estrange, admittedly a lifelong friend of the Bolles, is unstinting in his praise in the 4th edition of 1706, even though he had reservations about Simpson’s (m) compositions: The esteem I ever had for Mr Sympson’s Person and Morals, had not engag’d me in any sort of Partiality to his works. But I am yet glad of any Occasion wherein I may fairly state a manifest Truth to his Advantage; and at the same time, do justice to the dead and a Service to the living. This Compendium of his, look upon as the clearest, the most useful, and regular Method of Introduction to Music that is yet Extant. And herein I do but join in a Testimony with greater judges. This is enough said on Behalf of a Book that carries in itself its own Recommendation. The sections on various aspects of musical composition repeat much of what Simpson (m) said in The Division Viol about the importance of the bass, applied first to part-writing note against note and then developed into what he calls `figurative descant’: Figurative Descant is that wherein Discords are concerned as well as Concords. And as we termed Plain Descant (in which was taught the use of Concords) the Groundwork or Grammar of Musical Composition, so we may properly nominate this, the Ornament or Rhetorical part of Musick. [18] His introduction to harmony includes many fascinating details such as the bass answering and imitating the treble, the use
52 Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) settled in Rome about 1633, becoming professor of Mathematics, Physics and Eastern Studies at the Collegio Romano. 53 R. Descartes, Excellent Compendium of Musick with Necessary and Judicious Animadversions Thereupon, by a person of honour (1653), Durham Cathedral Library copy, A.33. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
of the fifth with the sixth in the first inversion of the seventh and suspensions both in the treble and the bass. Written for domestic readers, the book deals with the English musical scene and refer- ences to practices abroad are few. When giving a list of types of music for voices, he adds `of which no man is ignorant that hath frequented either the Churches beyond the Sea, or the Cathedrals of England’. Another regrettably brief comment is ‘the Drammatick or Recitative Musick, which is something of a stranger to us here in England’. The only reference to a foreign composer leaves one also very much in the dark. Kapsberger (c. 1580-1651), whose career in Rome as a lutenist of considerable virtuosity and a prolific composer of religious and dramatic works, including the Apotheoses seu Consecratio Ignatii et Francisci Xavierii (1622), may have been a composer whose works were performed in Jesuit establishments but he appears to have been little known in England except perhaps in Catholic circles. Simpson (m) must also have been the first theorist to shed the long-held attachment to the Greek modes and their affections. He considered mood to be related to measure or rhythm rather than to key. Simpson’s (m) books are the product of an original and disciplined mind. Years of experience in teaching his subject were clearly linked to an ability to present it simply and progressively. The Division Viol has a strong link with Europe, although the attempt to direct its contents to readers there was unsuccessful. He knew about music overseas but perhaps had not been personally in touch for some time. If he had left Europe c. 1640 the intervening twenty years in England in its troubled state would have been sufficient to account for this, particularly if he had not been solely engaged in musical activities. Jesuit influence is faint but it is there in the writing of musical theory as being an acceptable activity, the references to other theorists and the development of the vision of ignatius Loyola of the triad and the Trinity. Conclusions Any investigation into the lives of English Jesuits of the seventeenth century who escaped the law, is bound to meet with frustration. To have survived in the most difficult circumstances could only mean that their cover had been impregnable and the loyalty and protection of friends assured. If Simpson (m) was a Jesuit, the patronage of the Bolles family who were protestants was very unusual and there is no means of assessing the extent of their knowledge that he was any other than he purported to be. Sir Robert Bolles did have a close friend who was a Catholic and a Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
witness to his will as indeed Simpson (m) was also. Sir Charles Dallison of Laughton was a Lincolnshire landowner, a serjeantat- law and a former colonel in the royalist army. One of his sons became a priest and two of his daughters nuns at the convent at Bruges.54 Had Simpson [19] (m) instructed these children and had Sir Charles been his Catholic protector with or without the cognizance of the Bolles? The alter ego of the musician and teacher could have been accepted at face value and have passed relatively unnoticed in the musical circle of the Bolles. The wars and the close confinement at Scampton did in the end develop a stronger identity for Simpson (m) as his books were published and his music attracted attention. If Simpson (m) was a Jesuit, this could have proved to be an embarrassment. The mystery of his death and burial might then be explained by the need to dispatch two identities. If this is what happened, the problem of accounting for this in a general letter to Rome must have been acute. It could be that for reasons of secrecy, danger to all concerned, lack of regular contact and general practicality that Rome was sent a carefully edited version of events. Apart from this area of doubt about the deaths, the time scales and family background of the musician and the Jesuit fit reasonably well together, particularly attractive being the period of education and training abroad which would explain Simpson’s (m) absence from home, the extent of European awareness and his confident bearing as a scholar, teacher and a gentleman who had an entree into the presence of noblemen. The evidence is entirely circumstantial but this is as much as could be expected in the period in question with the fragmentary nature of what can be discovered of the lives of recusants and priests. If one answers the hypothesis positively, many of the questions about Simpson’s (m) life and works can be answered in a satisfactory manner, giving him a more positive position in musical history than the rather occluded one which has been his thus far. On the negative side, there is the question as to how Simpson (S. J.) was able to fulfill the responsibilities of his mission in the circumstances of leading a double life. The Jesuits were pragmatists, trained to make the best of any problems which had to be faced. The defeat at York, unexpected as it must have been, left the North Yorkshire Catholics very exposed. Simpson (m) may have attracted more attention than was wise in his association with the Duke of Newcastle, after which a tactical withdrawal and a safe refuge
54 Dom Charles Gregory Dallison OSB; Dame Bridget Mary Joseph Dallison OSB; Dame Mary Martha Dallison OSB ('Miscellanea VIII', Catholic Record Society, 13 (1913), 70; 'Miscellanea IX', Catholic Record .Society, 14 (1914), 187). Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
were required. One move could have led to another in the circumstances. He did not flee abroad with the duke; therefore he must have had some very good reason for hiding out. Simpson (m) was a man who was admired as much for his character as his achievements. His friend, John Jenkins, in his laudatory poem, `Great Soule of Musick’, strongly conveys the love and respect in which Simpson was held by those who knew him well. The motto beneath his arms is `Nulla lux sine umbra’ `No light without shade’. Could this be a clue to the enigma? Whatever the answer, whether in light or shade, Simpson (m) must remain an intriguing man of mystery and an important contributor to the music and musical education not only of his own day, but also to the revival of viol performance in this century. [20] APPENDIXI
Details of the Harleian Pedigree, Lbl Harl. MS 5800 £ 21, `The Armes and Creast of Christopher Sympson of Hunthouse'
1. ‘Christopher Sympson descended from that name and familie originally in Nottinghamshire’. Great-grandfather of Christopher Simpson (m). 2. ‘George Sympson of Richmond in Yorkshire m. Elizabeth da. of...... White of Skingrave in ye County of Yorke’. Grandparents of Christopher Simpson (m). 3. ‘Christopher Sympson of Westonby in ye County of Yorke, eldest sonn m. Dorothy da. of William Pearson of Rosdall in ye County of Yorke’. Parents of Christopher Simpson (m). ‘Edward Sympson, 2nd sonn m...... Daugr of...... Laund of Egton in ye County of Yorke’.
No trace has been found of this couple but there was an older Edward Sympson who married Katherine Laund. See appendix IIb.
‘George Sympson, 3rd sonn Robert Sympson, 4th sonn m. Alice daughr of Ralph Postcatt in ye County of Yorke'. See Appendix Ild.
There were several Robert Simpsons including one who was a member of the Egton Players and was married to Jane. Like Edward, he was older than Christopher (f) and can be associated with the Egton Chapelry, Staithes and Hinderwell-cum-Roxby from 1595 to 1611.
4. The children of Christopher Sympson (f).
‘Christopher Sympson of Hunt House in ye Wapentake of Pickering in ye County of Yorke’. Stephen Sympson, 2nd Sonn m. Alice, dau. of Ralph Laund of Egton Thomas 3rd William 4th (Unnamed) 5th Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
Elinor 6th died without issue’.
5. The children of Stephen Sympson. ‘Christopher, Eldest Sonn Stephen Edward Alice’ Christopher (n), Stephen and a nephew, William are mentioned in their uncle's will but not Edward. Two daughters were provided for by their uncle, the second niece may have been the Mary of her father's will.
[21] APPENDIXII Family Relationships a. The Simpson Family George Simpson of Richmond1 = Elizabeth White of Skinningrove d.1600 d.1608 __|__ Christopher Simpson (f) of Westonby2 = Dorothy Pearson of Rosedale b. c. 1580 b. c. 1580, d.1628 ______| - Christopher Simpson(m) of Hunthouse3
- Stephen Simpson of Westonby = Alice Laund of Egton d.1668 - William - Thomas - (Unnamed) - Elinor
______Christopher Simpson(n) of Hunthouse4 = Martha Harrison Stephen d.1704 d.1715 Edward William Alice Mary
Several versions of the spelling of Simpson have been found within this family group of which Sympson is the most frequent.
1. As explained in the text, there is no proof that these were the parents of Christopher (f). 2. The dates of birth have been judged from the recusant records of 1614 when they were said to be aged thirty-four. 3. The arguments about the birth and death of Christopher (m) can be found on p. (5). 4. Christopher (n) was married on 24 January 1668%9. His father had died on 26 July of the previous year. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
b. The family of Edward Simpson
Edward Simpson of Egton1 = Katherine Laund2 b. c. 1564 d. c. 1617 b. c. 1564
John3 Richard Cuthbert Edward Daughter b. c. 1590 b.c.1591 b.c.1597 b. c. 1597 Margaret or Ann
1 He could not have been the younger brother of Christopher (f) of the pedigree. He was described as being a cordwainer of Egton but was often indicted for keeping an alehouse and brewing. 1 She is mentioned in the will of George Laund (d. 1623) with her son John (37241 Borthwick Institute, York). 1 The ages of the parents and their sons can be found in the recusant returns of 1614. The latter were members of the Egton Players.
[22] c. The Laund Family William Laund of Whitby1 George Ralph of Egton2 d.1651
Robert 3 = Alicia Dale Alice = Stephen Simpson Elizabeth4 d.1633 1. George and Ralph Laund were described as the sons of William Laund of Whitby in the will of another George Laund (d. 1623, 37/241 Borthwick Institute, York). 2. Ralph was left the lease of a farm in Egton by yet another William Laund in 1620 (36/47 Borthwick Institute, York). 3. Robert is mentioned in the will of Edward Laund, bachelor who died in 1594 (26/14 Borthwick Institute, York). He married Alicia Dale in 1633 (Egton parish register) and was one of the Egton Players. 4. Egton parish register. d. The Postgates
The Elizabethan Postgates were based at Dean Hall in Whitby but their descendants were scattered further inland. James Postgate (A), the father of Nicholas Postgate, lived at Kirkdale Banks, Egton while James Postgate (B) of Stanton was in the employ of John Constable of Burton Constable. A. James Postgate = Margaret Watson d.1602/3 d.1624 | Matthew1 William Nicholas2 m d.1679 Elizabeth
B. James Postgate = Margerie Younger 3 d.1627
Ralph William James John Margaret Elizabeth Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
Alice (dau. of Ralph) =Robert Simpson4
1. Egton parish register, 1628. 2. A seminary priest, executed at York on 7 August 1679. Considered to have been one of the Egton Players in 1615/6 (`Quarter Sessions Records', 11, 110). 3. Her father is mentioned in James Postgate's will (411224 Borthwick Institute, York). 4. The brother of Christopher Simpson (f), according to the pedigree. e. The Pearsons
This family has been the most difficult to trace as Dorothy Simpson (née Pearson), the mother of Christopher (m) does not feature in any of the wills of Pearsons of Rosedale or Egton. There were several William Pearsons in the area at the time, but none of them has yielded any positive result. A Francis Pearson of Egton whom Christopher Simpson (m) described as his `cozen' and appointed an executor, may have been a descendant of Francis Pearson of Westonby, who was born c. 1580 and died c. 1616. His wife, according to the recusant records was called Ellenor. [23] Stephen Simpson and Francis Pearson were the witnesses when yet another Francis Pearson, butcher, was married to an Elizabeth Laund in Whitbv in 1656/7. Francis, the witness, could not have been his father for he died c. 1616 but there was. another Francis Pearson of that generation who was the son of George Pearson of Bethwick Park. In the English Catholic lists of Non-Jurors of 1715, possible descendants of both Pearsons and Simpsons are recorded:
Francis Pearson of Parkgate, Newbiggin, Par Lythe. Late father Francis Pearson also of Parkgate. Christopher Simpson of Hunthouse, Fryerhouse and Springhill at Goatland.
It seems likely that Francis Pearson of Westonby and Dorothy Pearson, wife of Christopher Simpson (f), also of Westonby were brother and sister but there is at present no means of placing them in a family setting. The descendants of 1715 may have been great grandsons. The term `cozen' used by Simpson (m) could then be interpreted as `second cousin'.
APPENDIXIII
The letter of Fr George Gray (extract), Stonyhurst College, Angl. V.77 Nunc veto significo D. Christopherum Simpsonem e vita discessisse. Vir erat vere Religiosus, et insignis in hac vinea Operarius. Nostris praefuit per Northumbriam annis circiter viginti. Mirandum fuit, potuisse illum in medio Gentis Haereticae, Ludum Litterarium selectae iuventuti virorum nobilium impure aperire, atque in hodiernum usq, diem tueri et conservare. Nota Viri probitas et candor plures primaries Heterodoxos eo perpulerunt, ut in eius disciplinam filios suos tradere non dubitarint. Tyrocinium Watenis ingressus est iam tum Sacerdos 27 Maii 1634 annos natus 28. Professus 4 Votorum 25 Oct 1648. Obiit 3 Martii 1674. st.n. cum annum ageret 68 um. Dat. Londini 3 mart. 1674 st.n. Chelys vol. 21 (1992), article 1
Now I have to tell you that Fr. Christopher Simpson has departed this life. He was a truly devout man and an outstanding labourer in the vineyard. He was Superior of our community throughout Northumbria for about twenty years. It was a remarkable thing that in the midst of a heretical nation, he could get away with opening a school for the carefully chosen sons of noble families, oversee and maintain it until the present day. The man's known probity and honesty led many of the leading men among the heretics to the point where they had no hesitation to entrust their sons to be educated by him. He entered the novitiate at Watten, being already a priest on 27 May 1634, being 28 years of age. He was raised to the degree of a fully professed father (taking the 4 vows) on 25 October 1648 and died on 3 of March 1674 in his sixty-eighth year. Dated London, 3 March 1674 (new style of dating).
APPENDIXIV
Documents in which the handwriting of Simpson (m) and Simpson (S.J.) have been examined. Simpson's (m) handwriting and music writing has been identified in quantity. See M. Urquhart, `The Handwriting of Christopher Simpson', Chelys, 15, (1986), 62. The documents relating to Simpson (S. J.) are:
1. Responsa Scbolarum. Considered to be in the hand of a scribe. Signature similar to that in 2.
2. Liber Ruber 664 Signature in the margin, May 3, 1626. Similar to 1. 3. Ass. Germaniae, Professi 4 Votorum 1646-1648, 430-431. The text is in a somewhat florid Italianate hand; the signature has some of the characteristics of Simpson's (m) [24] signature in the lower start to the ‘C’ in relation to the other letters which rise gradually towards the right and the formation of the ‘S’ of Simpson and the break before the same rise of the other letters.
Conclusions
The handwriting of Simpson (m) which has been identified, belongs to the period c. 1660 and onwards, while the Simpson (S. J.) documents are all prior to 1648 and express the signatures in Latin rather than English. Only one of the latter appears to bear any relationship to the former but is not conclusive. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
JOHNLILLY: AREDATING
PAMELA WILLETTS
John Lilly is known as the composer of a number of pieces for the lyra viol, as a celebrated performer on the viol and theorbo, a teacher of music, a member of the Royal Musick and as the copyist of a number of important sources of viol music, some of which were made for Lord Hatton in collaboration with another copyist now identified as Stephen Bing.1 The purpose of this article is to fill in the background of his life and, in particular, to assign a probable date to the copies made jointly with Stephen Bing.
Life of John Lilly
Much of our knowledge of John Lilly derives from a poem by Nicholas Hookes of Trinity College, Cambridge, ‘To Mr. Lilly, Musick- Master in Cambridge’, published in his collection of poems Amanda (1653), and from a passage in the life of Francis North, by his younger brother Roger, written many years after the events described. For ease of reference I quote from both writers here. The poem by Nicholas Hookes is a strange mixture of compliment, jest and double entendre.2 The author (b. 1628) was a student at Trinity College between 1649 and 1653 and was apparently on familiar terms with Lilly. The poem ends with the wish that both of them ‘might play in Consort’ with the poet’s (imaginary) mistress, Amanda. It is too long to quote in full but I have selected lines which appear to show personal knowledge of the expressiveness and vivacity of Lilly’s playing. The poem begins: Sir, I have seen your scip-jack fingers flie, As if their motion taught Ubiquitie: I’ve seen the trembling Cat’lin’s smart and brisk Start from the frets, dance, leap, and nimbly frisk... I’ve heard each string speak in so short a space As if all spoke at once; with stately grace The surley tenour grumble at your touch, And th’ticklish-maiden treble laugh as much, Which (if your bowe-hand whip it wantonly,) Most pertly chirps and jabbers merrily;
1 P.J. Willetts, ‘John Lilly, musician and music copyist’, The Bodleian Library Record, 7/6 (February 1967), 307-I1; ‘Stephen Bing: a forgotten violist’, Chelys, 18 (1989), 3-17. 2 Nicholas Hookes (1628-1712) was a Londoner by birth. He was a scholar from Westminster, matriculated as a pensioner from Trinity College, Cambridge, Easter, 1649, and took his B.A. in 1652-3. A few further details are given in J. and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 1, ii (Cambridge, 1922), 403; Sir L. Stephen and Sir S. Lee (eds), Dictionary of National Biography (rep., 1973), IX, 1193. Percv Scholes gives some account of the poem (The Puritans and Music (1934), 175-6). Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
...I’ve heard you pawse, and dwell upon an aire... Then snatch up notes, as if your viol broke, And in the breaking every splinter spoke: I’ve seen your active hands vault to and fro, This to give grace, that to command your bowe; As if your fingers and your instrument By conspiration made you eminent. [28] The poem continues with a passage which names several Cambridge musicians, some of whom are relevant to the present context: We have good Musick and Musicians here, If not the best, as good as anywhere: A brave old Irish Harper, and you know English or French may few or none out-go Our Lutanists; the Lusemores too I think For Organists, the Sack-buts breath may stink, And yet old Broumes be sweet, o’th Violin Saunders plays well, where Magge or Mel han’t been. Then on his Cornet brave thanksgiving Mun, places on Kings Chappel after Sermon’s done: At those loud blasts, though he’s out-gone by none, Yet Cambridge glories in your self alone: No more but thus, he that heares only you, Heares Lillie play, and Doctor Coleman too. Now for Roger North: 3 There was an old soker, that had lived in Cambridge, and so was his [Francis North’s] acquaintance, and had bin frequently with his grandfather for the purposes of his profession. This man, for the sake of places in the King’s musik, removed to London; and having a great expensive family, hardly maintained them. And his lordship was so great patron to him, as almost to support his family; onely, to colour giving him pay, he set him to teach me on the theorboe lute, and to write musike for him and others. He was free of his table as if he were of the house; and his lordship got him his salarvs payd him, [and] took a son into a good office. The old man was a peice of a droll, but very hearty and honest. He knew his lordship’s family well, and particularly the tyranicall old lord, his grandfather; ... and old Lilly (so he was called) used to say in his harsh and loved pronunciation in all places, that he was very sure the 2nd Dudley Lord North’s children succeeded all so well in the world, and were blest by God Almighty, for the extraordinary duty of their father, and observance, paid to his father the old Lord North. When I looked at this passage again after many years I realised that I had missed certain nuances. On first reading, the picture given by Roger North is of an elderly man, with a country accent, and oldfashioned views. The phrase ‘The old man was a peice of a droll, but very hearty and honest’ may give a false impression. There is more than an element of condescension here and Roger North is writing down his memories of events long past when he was very young. We can perhaps date the time of
3 J. Wilson (ed.) Roger North on Music (1959), 37-38. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
Lilly’s lessons to Roger North on the theorbo to about 1669 when Roger came to London to read law and had a chamber in the Middle Temple. His allowance was small and he depended on assistance from his brother, Francis, who was well established in his profession.4 But Roger North himself was the younger son of a peer with the social standing and attitudes that went with this. I could not match up this view of John Lilly with his considerable reputation as a player and teacher of the viol and theorbo, and his position in the Royal Musick. He may have been an old man in Roger North’s youthful eyes but he [29] was still active. In 1674 and 1675 he was on duty at Windsor which would have involved travelling, probably on horseback; riding charges are mentioned in the records.5 A search of Cambridgeshire registers and other genealogical sources reveals that John Lilly, far from being an elderly countryman (who could play the viol and write a beautifully controlled hand) was probably the son of a clergyman. John Lilly’s son, also John, was admitted as a sizar, to Caius College, Cambridge, on 22 June 1663. In the College registers he is described as the son of John, musician, of Cambridge, and said to come from Croydon, Cambs.6 Working back from this I found the baptism, at Croydon, of John, son of John and Frances on 11 August 1644. As for John Lilly himself, a John, son of Henry and Elizabeth was baptised at Croydon, 28 January 1611/2. Henry and Elizabeth also had five daughters, and it seems very likely that this Henry Lilly was the vicar of Croydon who was instituted in 1596. The original parish records of Croydon cum Clopton (Clopton) at this date have not survived. The details of baptisms given here come from the Bishop’s transcripts which, in this case, do not give the occupations of fathers.7 Croydon was a small village and a poor living - the population was about 140 in the early seventeenth century. Unless there were two Henry Lillys in the village it seems probable that Henry Lilly, the father of John, and of five daughters, was the vicar. He was a moderate puritan and appears to have retained the living until after 1650.8
4 A. Jessopp (ed.), The Autobiograpiy of Roger North (1887), 18-19. 5 A. Ashbee, Records of English Court Music (RECM), 6 vols (1986-1992), 1, 147, 164. 6 Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 1, iii (Cambridge, 1924), 85; J. Venn, Biographical 11tstory of Gonrille and Caius (Cambridge, 1897), I, 420. J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, 111 (Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1968 reprint), 914. 7 Parish register (Bishop’s transcript), Croydon cum Clapton, Cambs. A. Gibbons, Ely Episcopal Records (Lincoln, 1891), 288, gives some extracts. Modern transcript at the Society of Genealogists, London. The Ely Bishop’s transcripts are in Cambridge University Library. 8 A.P.M. Wright (ed.), The Victoria History of the Count’ of Cambridge, VIII (1982), 30, 39-41; Gibbons gives a reference to the marriage of Henrv Lilly, vicar of Croydon, and Elizabeth Dareling, at Bassingbourn, 1st October 1627 (ibid. 248). In view of his age it seems likely that this was a second marriage. An Elizabeth Lilly, who may have been his first wife, was buried at Croydon on 7 April 1625. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
Henry Lilly matriculated as a sizar at Queen’s College, Cambridge in 1588 and took his M.A. in 1595.9 He would have seen the fashionable Cambridge italic hands. John Lilly, the musician, has a fine text hand, not italic but with Italianate features (see Plate 1). I have not found any record that John Lilly himself was admitted to any Cambridge college. The earlier records of some colleges are however incomplete. There can be no doubt that the John Lilly who married Frances and had a son baptised at Croydon in 1644 is the musician. John and Frances are subsequently found in the parish of St Michael, Cambridge, where the baptisms of two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, are recorded on 11 October 1645 and 26 June 1647.10 (There is later confirmation of Frances as the wife of John Lilly the musician, and Elizabeth as his daughter, after his move to London). That John Lilly was in Cambridge by 1645 is established—but there may have been an earlier connection. The records of Queens’ College, Cambridge, include several references to the performances of plays. On 6 February 1637/8 a performance of William Johnson’s ‘Valetudinarium’ was given.11 The accounts for this include the following payments:
to Jo. Browne £l 5 0 to Mr Lilly £l 2 0 to Mr Loosemore & his boy £2 0 0 Mr Loosemore could be Henry Loosemore, organist of King’s College, 1627-70,
[30] [Plate 1. Lbl Egerton MS 2485, f. 2.] who is mentioned in Nicholas Hookes’s poem quoted above, or George Loosemore, organist of Jesus College, 1635; both Loosemores are known to have been associated with the Norths at Kirtling near Newmarket. John Browne could be ‘old Browne’, the musician also mentioned in the poem. A payment of £1 10s to ‘John Browne the musitian’ is recorded in King’s College archives in 1651/2.12 And is Mr Lilly John Li11y?13
9 Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 1, iii, 85. 10 J. Venn, The Register of ... St Michael’s Parish, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1891), 14. 11 The Queens’ College accounts are quoted in G. C. Moore Smith (ed.), `The Academic Drama at Cambridge. Extracts from College Records’, Afalone Society Collections, 2(2 (1923), 192-3. Further references relating to ‘Valetudinarium’ are in G.E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, IV (Oxford, 1956), 600-2. 12 Schlars, op. cit., 366; Craig Monson gives a number of other payments to Mr Brown the musician from the records of Peterhouse and Trinity (V"oices and Viols in England, 1600-1650 (Ann Arbor, 1982), 127). 13 The drama records have been available for many years and others must have linked these names with the Cambridge musicians. The only published reference which has come to my notice is Julia K. Wood, `Two Latin Play Songs', RMA Research Chronicle, 21 (1988), 47. This paper also includes a reproduction of a song from the play and it is suggested that the style is similar to that of George Jeffreys. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
It is only fair to mention that there were several other Lillys (a common name in the seventeenth century) involved with drama, particularly in London. A John Lillie and George Lillie were players in the Queen of Bohemia’s company and among those sworn as grooms of the royal household on 30 June 1628. A petition for debt against this John Lilly and Alexander Foster on 6 February 1629/30 is recorded. 14 The John Lilly born at Croydon in 1611/2 would have been a minor at this time. Further information about John Lilly can be obtained from the life of his son. From the records of Caius College it is known that the latter was educated for five years privately in Cambridge with a Mr Wiborough.15 The Thomas Wiborough, lay clerk of Ely, 1583, who taught the viol at Ely can hardly have been this man.16 Another Thomas Wiborough, clergy vicar of Ely (d. 1669), sometime vicar of Impington, seems more likely.17 John Li11y, junior, was subsequently a Gownboy or scholar at Charterhouse in London where he was taught for two years by Thomas Watson. The boy was elected to the Charterhouse on 20 May 1658 on the nomination of one of the Governors, Lord Skipton, formerly one of Cromwell’s Major Generals.18 How this powerful recommendation was obtained is not known. John Lilly junior subsequently [31] held an exhibition from Charterhouse to Cambridge and took orders. The outlines of his career can be traced: curate at Epping, vicar of Ringmer, Sussex (1681), rector of Lamarsh, Essex (1691) where he died in 1717. His will is of interest in giving the name of another son of John Lilly, the musician.19 He bequeathed a gold ring ‘given me by my brother Mr Henry Lilly’ to his grandson, another Henry Lilly. The persistence of the name of Henry helps to confirm that the musician was the son of the Rev. Henry Lilly of Croydon. Henry Lilly, brother of John Lilly junior, must have been the eldest son of the musician.
14 Bentley, op. cit., 11 (Oxford, 1941), 438, 497-98. 15 Venn, Biographical History of Gonville and Caius, 1, 420. 16 I. Pavne, ‘The provision of teaching on the viols at some English Cathedral Churches .. ’, Chelys, 19 (1990), 6-7. 17 A.G. Matthews, Walker Revised (Oxford, 1948), 88. 18 Bower Marsh and F. A. Crisp, Alumni Cartbusiani. A Record of the Foundation Scholars ... (Privately printed, 1913), 27, gives the entry relating to John Lilly's election. Thomas Watson was appointed reader (1651), usher (1655) and schoolmaster (24 June 1662) (Marsh and Crisp, ibid., 286-87). Nominations were by signed warrant from one of the Governors or from the Crown. Admissions took place after election when vacancies occurred. Age of entry was between ten and fourteen years. This could mean that nominees forfeited their chance of entry if they became over age during the waiting period. At his election in May 1658 John Lilly (baptised August 1644) was nearly fourteen. There would have been reason to understate his age which probably accounts for the incorrect ages of seventeen (Venn), or sixteen (Foster), given at his admission as sizar to Cams on 22 June 1663. 19 Essex Commissary Court. F.G. Emmison, `Wills at Chelmsford' Index Library, lxxix (1959-60), 221. John Lilly, junior, married Hannah Smith at Aldham, Essex in 1676. A daughter, Frances, was baptised at Epping, 1677. The wills of John Lilly junior (proved 1717) and of his wife (proved 1718) mention a son, John, grandson Henry, and three daughters, Frances Holden, Mary Lilly and Hannah Peartree. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
Roger North said Lilly moved to London for the sake of places in the King’s Musick. The first reference to him in this connection is on 18 June 1660 when he was appointed as a theorbo player to the Private Musick in place of John Kelly. Lilly’s name occurs among those sworn in on 19 June 1660, only three weeks after the triumphal entry of Charles II into London. Jenkins was sworn in on the same day to a place for the lute in the Private Musick. On 31 December 1660 a warrant was issued for the granting of places as musicians in ordinary to Lilly and Jenkins.20 What lay behind these appointments? Neither is known to have held a court appointment before the Civil Wars. There was much lobbying for places at the Restoration and there must have been influential support for their appointments. Of course, Lord Hatton was related by marriage to Dudley, afterwards 4th Baron North, in whose household Jenkins was employed. From the many references to both Lilly and Jenkins in the records of court music calendared by Dr Andrew Ashbee there is ample evidence of a close connection and indeed friendship between the two men. Jenkins appointed Lilly his attorney on 4 January 1663/4 and there are frequent records of Lilly’s collecting payments due to Jenkins. It is now known that Jenkins bequeathed the arrears due to him to John Lilly, and that after Jenkins’s death on 27 October 1678, Frances, widow of John Lilly, was appointed an attorney by Jenkins’s executors to collect the same.21 It seems the intended bequest in practice covered only one payment for Lilly himself had died on 25 October 1678. Frances Lilly collected the arrears due to her late husband up to 25 September 1683 (when she collected arrears for the half year due on 24 June 1678). There is apparently no record of her receiving the final quarter noted as due to her. The general outline of the end of John Lilly’s life is documented by Dr Ashbee. Most of the references are to warrants, signatures or other receipts for payments, often many years after the period for which they were due, and mentions of arrears. Despite the influence of Francis North the financial difficulties mentioned by Roger North evidently continued. On 28 November 1672 Lilly was summoned to appear to answer a petition against him to the Lord Chamberlain by John Turner, merchant of Cambridge. In December he found it prudent to write a formal letter assigning debentures for two years’ liveries [32] due for 1671, 1672 ‘or such other Twoe yeares Debent(u)r(e)s which shall happen to bee first payd’ (which gives an indication of his difficulties in obtaining money due to him).22 This debt suggests a continuing contact with Cambridge. Roger North mentioned Lilly’s ‘great expensive family’. As well as his own family of at least four children Lilly may have had the duty of maintaining five sisters.
20 Ashbee, RECM,I, 3, 9. 21 Ashbee, RECM,V, 77-8, 168-69, 216. See also Ashbee, The Harmonious Musick of John Jenkins (Surbiton, 1992), 1, 89-92, 320 21. 22 Ashbee, RECM, 1, 120, 277; further details from PRO LC5;189, f. 104; LC9/258, f. 16v. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
On 29 September 1673 he received a useful supplement to his income when Pelham Humfrey agreed to pay him £30 for teaching four children of the Chapel Royal on the viol and theorbo. One of these might have been Henry Purcell.23 This is a tantalising possibility but Purcell’s voice was breaking. On 17 December 1673 he is said to have left the Chapel Royal but he received a warrant for C30 a year payable from Michaelmas 1673.24 Despite Roger North’s reference to him as an ‘old man’ Lilly was still active. In 1674 he played the theorbo in the masque of ‘Calisto’ by John Crowne (the music was by Nicholas Staggins, Master of the King’s Musick).25 There were many rehearsals before the first performance on 16 February 1675. In the summers of 1674 and 1675 he was also in attendance at Windsor and his allowed expenses included riding charges. And he was still involved in the service of the Corporation of Musick in Westminster, the body set up to regulate the profession of music, and from which Charles II, in his renewal of previous charters on 1st April 1664, undertook to appoint his musicians. He was first chosen as warden of the Corporation in 1664, appeared at its courts for a number of years as an assistant and was chosen warden again in 1675. His last recorded appearance was on 24 June 1678.26 John Lilly died on 25 October 1678 and was buried in his parish church of St Andrew Holborn on 28 October.27 The entry in the parish register describes him as ‘John Lillie an Ancient gent from Baldwins Gardens buried ye 28th’.28 The description ‘gentleman’ implies a certain social status. The Church Wardens Accounts for St Andrew Holborn include a list of payments received for burials in the church: ‘Received for the Ground in the Church for these Corps following ... from ye 25th March 1678 to ye 25th March 1679’. This list includes John Lillie for whom 6s 8d, the standard rate, was paid.29 Although there is a reference in March 1680 to Frances Lilly as `relict and executrix of the last will and testament of John Lilly, gent.’ I have not managed to trace a will.30 Frances Lilly obtained letters of administration on 6 December 1678, shortly after his death.31 Perhaps she forwarded the will to Kimberley to claim her rights in respect of Jenkins’s arrears.
23 F. Zimmerman, Henry Purcell (rev. ed., Philadelphia, 1983), 34, quotes the LC record without further comment. D. Pinto, sleeve note, 1983, to the recording by London Baroque of the Purcell Fantasias for viols, suggested the possibility that Purcell might have been taught the viol by Lilly. 24 Ashbee, RECM, 1, 131-32. 25 Ashbee, ibid., 145, 150; %V. van Lennep, The London Stage 1660-1800, 1 (Carbondale, Illinois, 1965) 228-29. 26 Ashbee, RECM,V, 253, 258, 265, 269. 27 The date is given as 'ob. 25 Oct. 1678' in an annotation to LC9/199 quoted in RECM, I, 254. 28 Register of St Andrew, Holborn, London, Guildhall Library (GL) MS 6673/5, 28 October 1678. 29 GL NIS 19592, f. 88. 30 Ashbee, RECM,V, 77. 31 PCC Admon PRO Prob 653 f. 114. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
The mention of Baldwins Gardens (originally Baldwin’s Garden, after one of Queen Elizabeth’s gardeners) is of interest. John Lilly had been a resident there for many years. The chance survival of a tithe register for St Andrew’s Holborn shows that he was already there in 1665.32 He is listed with his wife, Frances, daughter Elizabeth and a servant. This entry is useful confirmation that the [33] John Lilly found in the parish registers at Croydon and St Michael’s Cambridge is the same man. The Baldwins Gardens address also explains Roger North’s description of Lilly as an ‘old soker’. Baldwins Gardens was part of the soke of Portepool, an area under the overlordship of the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s, outside the jurisdiction of the City. It claimed the privilege of sanctuary and was used as a refuge, particularly by debtors.33 Roger North’s term ‘soker’ has a legal meaning, whether or not John Lilly used the protected status of his address to escape his debts. As we have seen above a petition to the Lord Chamberlain was used against him to some effect. The privilege of sanctuary in Baldwins Gardens was abolished in 1697, together with those of other better known sanctuaries such as Alsatia. Sir Walter Besant quotes a satirical account of the sanctuaries in The Floating Island or a New Discovery relating the Strange Adventure on a late Voyage from Lambethana to Villa Franca ... (1673), this being an elaborate conceit describing the various places of sanctuary under slightly disguised names, with warnings of dangerous approaches, etc.34 Baldwins Gardens gets a mention: The Back-gate into Graies-Inn Lane, with the benefit of Bauldwins Gardens, is of excellent use; but the passiges through certain Inns on the Field-side are not attempted without hazard, by reason of the straggling Troops of the Enemy, who lie Purdue in every ale-house thereabouts. The safest way of Sally is that through the Walks, from whence the Red Lyon in Grates-Inn Lane receives them with good quartering, and passes them through the back way into the Main Land. It is stated by a number of writers, who give no references, that Henry Purcell was also a resident of Baldwins Gardens on occasion to escape his creditors. The earliest publication of this assertion that I have traced is in H. B. Wheatley, London Past and Present (1891); it does not occur in Peter Cunningham’s A Handbook for London (1849, 1850) on which Wheatley founded his work. Wheatley does not give the source of his statement, but many writers on London and Holborn since have followed him. It is well known that Henry Purcell had difficulties, like many musicians, in obtaining payment for his services. The only point of interest here is that Purcell, before his marriage, particularly if studying the viol with Lilly, might have lodged in Baldwins Gardens. By the time of Lilly’s
32 GL, MS 9588, f. 79 (tithe rate ledger of St Andrew's, Holborn). 33 Soke of Portepool, cf. E. Williams, Early Holborn (1927), 1, 593-600. An Act of 1697 (.Statutes of the Realm, 8, 9 William III, c. 27 para. 15) was a further attempt to abolish the sanctuaries; this Act compelled sheriffs to arrest debtors who had fled to ‘pretended privileged places’ of which Baldwins Gardens was one of those listed. Some recourse to sanctuaries lingered on until the eighteenth century. 34 Sir W. Besant, London in the time of the Stuarts (1903), 168-171. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
death Purcell would still have been a minor and at this date, liable for debts only so far as necessities were concerned.35 Whether it would have been worth any one’s while to chase him into Baldwins Gardens with a sheriff’s writ I cannot tell. My sampling of Chancery records has so far proved fruitless.
John Lilly as a copyist It is instructive to compare the outlines of the lives of John Lilly and Stephen Bing, his collaborator in the important group of sources now at Christ Church, Oxford. [34]
John Lily Stephen Bing 1612 ?Born, Croydon, Cambs 1610 Born, Canterburv 1617 -24 Chorister, Canterburv 1638 ?Musician in `Valetudinarium’ at 1630s Known in Cambridge Queens’ College, Cambridge circles 1640 Minor canon, St Paul’s, London ? Birth of son, Henry 1643 Listed as a delinquent (royalist). ?At Oxford 1644 Birth of son, John, at Croydon, Camhs. 1645-60 At Cambridge. Birth of two 1647-49 At St Paul’s, London daughters, 1645, 1647. Known as a musician and teacher. Intermittently at Kirtling 1651-60 In London. Known as a teacher in Hackney 1660-78 In London. Places in the King’s 1660-67 At St Paul’s Musick 1667-72 At Lincoln 1672-81 At Westminster Abbey 1678 Died on 25 October 1681 Died in November I am faced with the conclusion that the only time when John Lilly and Stephen Bing could have worked together to produce the imposing series of volumes now at Christ Church was before Stephen Bing’s appointment to St Paul’s in 1640. The late hands of both men (after 1672) show great deterioration in their copying skills. Even in 1668 Lilly’s hand in the set copied for Lowe (see below) has lost much of its firmness. Both were in London from 1660-67 but Bing was much occupied with problems of administration at St Paul’s and of the plague and fire in 1665 and 1666.36 It seems most unlikely that they could have collaborated at this time on a major project for Lord Hatton. The fine imposed on Hatton at his return to England in 1656 was such a burden that he turned his attention to selling off building plots in the former gardens of Hatton House in Holborn. From 1662-65 Hatton was Governor of Guernsey.
35 W.S. Holdsworth, A History of English Lain, V (1924), 418. 36 For the background see Willetts, ‘Stephen Bing’, 14-15. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
There is no doubt that some of the Christ Church sets were made for Sir Christopher Hatton (1st Baron Hatton of Kirby, 1643). One of the scorebooks (Och MS 432, written by Lilly and Bing) bears the Hatton arms, motto, and crest, and the riband and medallion of a Knight of the Bath; at this date coronets of rank had not been introduced for barons and the heraldic binding cannot be used to date the volume more exactly. The recent work of David Pinto and Jonathan Wainwright on Lord Hatton’s music library and greater awareness of his other scholarly and antiquarian interests make it possible to propose a much earlier date for the Lilly-Bing manuscripts at Christ Church than was suggested in my 1967 article.37 Paper and watermark studies also point to an earlier date for these manuscripts.38 The preparation of a fine calligraphic set of scores and parts of the musical repertoire of the time seems to fit in with other projects [35] initiated by Sir Christopher Hatton (as he was then) in the late 1630s, his copies of charters and seals, heraldic rolls, and elaborate drawings of monuments in cathedrals and churches.39 There now seems nothing to prevent John Lilly’s copying work for Sir Christopher from being dated to the 1630s. This was the time when both he and Stephen Bing were probably in the Cambridge area. As to whether the work would have been undertaken in Cambridge or at Kirby I have no evidence to proffer at present. In 1638-40 Kirby Hall was being extensively altered and restored. This is a major revision of dating which will have many implications, including the question already considered by others as to whether the Hatton music, printed and manuscript, was brought to Oxford by Hatton in 1643 and remained at Christ Church after the surrender of Oxford in 1646. There are arguments against this attractive hypothesis which are summarised in David Pinto’s recent study of the Hatton Library.40 I now propose the following dating for John Lilly’s copies:
1630s ?Cambridge/Kirby. Och MSS 397-400, 401-2, 403--8, For Lord Hatton 432 (with Stephen Bing, who also wrote MS 436 and the large scorebook Och MS 2), 612- 13. These consist of scores and parts of fancies by Coprario, Lupo, Ward, Mico, etc. ?Also for Lord Hatton Lbl Egerton MS 2485 (organ score of similar fancies) c. 1659 ?Cambridge or London Lbl Add. MS 59869, ff. 35v-8. Two sets of divisions, one by Polewhele, added to a copy of the first edition of Christopher Simpson’s Division Violist (1659). Bound with the Cartwright lyra viol manuscript 1668 ?London. Made for Edward Lowe, Ob MSS Mus. Sch. C 54-57 (Simpson’s Professor of Music at Oxford `Months’ and `Seasons’)
37 D. Pinto, ‘The Music of the Hattons’, RMA Research Chronicle, 23 (1990), 79-108; J.P. Wainwright, ‘George Jeffreys’ Copies of Italian Music’, ibid., 109-24. 38 R. Thompson, ‘The sources of Locke’s consort ‘for Seaverall Friends’’, Chelys, 19 (1990), 17. 39 A. R. Wagner, A Catalogue of English Medieval Rolls of Arms (Aspilogia, i, Oxford, 1950), xxi-xxiv. 40 Pinto, ‘The Music of the Hattons’, 89. Chelys 21 (1992), article 2
And organist of the Chapel Royal c. 1674 ?London Lbl Add. MS 27550, ff. 1-14. Part of a set in several hands, Add. MSS 27550-54 (Jenkins) The organ score of the Coprario suites for one violin, bass viol and organ, Och XIS 1185, has been described as the work of John Lilly.41 It was in fact copied by Stephen Bing. These manuscripts can be only a small proportion of Lilly’s work as a copyist but fortunately give a wide sample of his writing. The last item, Lbl Add. MSS 27550-4, is a strange hotch-potch. Only the beginning, Add. MS 27550, ff. 1-14, is in Lilly’s hand although he seems to have added numbers to the rest of this part-book which was completed by a youthful hand (perhaps that of one of his pupils), which also completed Add. MS 27552. Add. MS 27551 seems to be a late specimen of Stephen Bing’s hand; the beginning of Add. MS 27552 is in a different hand, and Add. MS 27553 (and end of Add. MS 27554) in another; while the beginning of the figured organ part, Add. MS 27554, ff. 1-7, is in a [36] very skilled hand found elsewhere, notably in Lbl Add. MS 17784 (bass part of anthems), and possibly associated with Windsor.42 The set as a whole is of importance since it is the only complete source of the Jenkins four-part suites (for two trebles, two basses and organ) and one of two sources for the three-part Fantazias and Airs. Dr Ashbee found many mistakes in the four-part suites, which is hardly surprising considering the number of copyists involved.43 The date 1674 is added at the beginning of Add. MS 27550 by yet another hand which also annotated the covers. It almost seems as if this set were a commission which Lilly was unable to complete and that he had to engage other assistants. The quality of the paper and of the vellum bindings is good. In 1674 Lilly was much occupied by his duties at Windsor and by rehearsals for ‘Calisto’. It is not the purpose of this article to consider the dates and connections of Lilly’s compositions. As a copyist his most important work was the fine series of manuscripts prepared for Lord Hatton’s library, written partly in collaboration with Stephen Bing. I now consider that these should be dated before the Civil Wars, and not after Lord Hatton’s return from France in 1656.
41 R. Charteris, John Coprario. A Thematic Catalogue of his Music (New York, 1977), 47. 42 Willetts, ‘John Lilly, musician and music copyist’ 310 -11; revised in ‘Stephen Bing’, 7. 43 A. Ashbee, ‘John Jenkins Consort Music of Four Parts’, Musica Britannica, 26 (rev. ed., 1975), 181. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
[39] A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH GERMANYANDENGLAND English Empfindsamkeit in the 17th Century ANNETTE OTTERSTEDT Translated by Hans Reiners
German ‘Empfindsamkeit’ and Romanticism When Laurence Sterne died in 1768, the famous German scholar Gotthold Ephraim Lessing said he would gladly have given him five years of his own life for writing. Lessing had assisted and advised J.J. Bode in translating Sterne’s Sentimental Journey into German. Bode wrote in his preface: I had initially translated the English ‘sentimental’ by a number of tentative terms; but my friend (Lessing) invented and suggested the word ‘empfindsam’: Note then that the term ‘sentimental’ is a new word. The English had no adjective at all of the noun ‘sentiment’. If Sterne could devise a new word for himself, the same liberty must be granted to his translator. There was no English adjective of sentiment: we have more than one derived from ‘Empfindung’, but all with different meanings. Therefore, risk the ‘empfindsam’. This gave the name to the era of ‘Empfindsamkeit’ around the middle of the eighteenth century. It did not last long, and, like all other interesting epochs, it is marked by the transition from a refined perception of older traditions to new views and attitudes which have yet to emerge. Levels of understanding required of adepts and amateurs are too high to be held up for long, and their circles remain appropriately limited. In common classification, the main musical exponents of ‘Empfindsamkeit’ are J.S. Bach’s sons, Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, whose treatise on ‘the true manner of playing upon the clavier’ (Versucb über die wahre Arth das Clavier zu spielen) published in 1753/’62, was to set the trend of the ‘empfindsam’ style. What exactly does ‘Empfindsamkeit’ mean? The focus in Sterne’s book, which grew very popular in Germany, is not so much on the plot as on the feelings of the dramatis personae. The distinction between German ‘Empfindsamkeit’ and the ‘romantic school’, which is also regarded as an era of feelings, is simple: It is knowledge. Key figures of the romantic movement, such as Ludwig Tieck and Bettina Brentano, interpreted their unreasoned feelings as `innocence’.A letter by Karoline yon Günderode to Bettina contains the following passage: ‘Your curiosity ought to be aroused without measure by anything your genius may tell you... You are faint-hearted - its inspirations challenge you to thought; you decline, [40] you would not be Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
awakened, you will sleep on.’ When it was suggested to Bettina that she would soon master the intricacies of counterpoint, she replied, ‘I have no wish to master; I would rather have those floods of music bemaster me.1 Authors associated with ‘Empfindsamkeit’ take a different line; for example, Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg: ‘We must question our own judgments with as much thoroughness as the work of others. We have to get to the bottom of our errors and concentrate on their causes.2 Where Bettina sits back to watch life pass before her mental eye like a beautiful dream, Marpurg expects active participation. The ‘dreamy’ romantic concept separates music from `The Bad World’ and surrounds it with the aura of a surrogate religion. This marks the beginning of a purely aesthetic understanding of art which is still afflicting us today. Art is exclusively beautiful, whereas it had been subject to moral standards from antiquity up to the eighteenth century: its object was to improve humanity. However, without being an essential part of life it is reduced to a mere pleasant illusion and eventually becomes dispensable. Dispensability often breeds contempt, and there is noticeable contempt in various of Heinrich Wackenroder’s works:3 But if the heavenly angels were to look down upon all these amusing toys and trifles we term ‘the arts’, they must surely smile with condescension at this childish race on earth, and smile at the guileless constraint in this art of sounds, by means of which mortals hope to rise to their heights. For Ludwig Tieck, music has even ceased to function as a protective shield against the misery of the world. He classes his escapism as sinful, the original sin resurging; only in his case the taint to which Adam falls is not Eve, but art—notably music, ‘that deceitful superstition, that fatal poison’, gets the blame.4 The authors of ‘Empfindsamkeit’ were a long way removed from this passive attitude weighed down by a guilty conscience. They took their music seriously as an active, essential part of their lives. A. The Audience ‘There are’, said Emanuel Bach, ‘many things in music one has to imagine without actually hearing them... Knowledgeable listeners make up for this deficiency by means of their imagination.’ And with a celebrated musician’s superciliousness he goes on to explain, ‘It is those above all whom we have to strive to please.5 What makes a good audience? ‘No less’, says Marpurg, than ‘the ability to discern with reason.6 Spontaneous sentiment and the knowledge of_
1 Both quotations from: Ricarda Huch, Die Romantik, 2 viols (Leipzig, 1920), 11, 174. 2 Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Der Critische Musiciens an der Spree (Berlin, 1749), 126. 3 Ludwig Tieck/Heinrich Wackenroder, Phantasien über die Kunst (Hamburg, 1799), 159. 4 Wackenroder, ibid., 207 ff. 5 Versuch, 11. Hauptstuck, 3rd Abteilung, $20, p. 78. 6 Marpurg, Der Critische Musicus, 104. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
musical rules should augment each other, and he concludes: ‘Thus, good taste consists in natural sentiment purified by the rules.’7 The foremost condition is a good ear, which Marpurg appears not to associate with ‘scholars’. He calls them ‘people preoccupied with their own rules... and particularly pedantic scholars [41] have the greatest difficulties in pleasing one another... They are... so full of their own ideas that any one else’s cannot be accommodated by them’.8 For such people a musician should not play. The music of `Empfindsamkeit’ is conceived to be heard more than once. Marpurg relies on extensive learning and long experience in pointing out: `In the arts, there is a point of perfection. Those who notice it, have a perfect taste; those who do not... have insufficient taste.9 B. The Performer ‘One must distinguish between the good and the bad in a piece of music and the good and the bad in the execution.’10 This distinction between composition and performance is new. A performing musician is, however, not meant to be an intuitive genius showing off, but an intellectual person with as much critical discretion towards his or her own art as the audience: ‘Inclination, assiduity, and exercise make the artist, but reason alone makes an excellent artist.’11 This implies that an artist evoking an affect out of place will be ridiculed and bore the audience: ‘Beautiful, tender notes alone do not make the music beautiful, but they must be struck at the right moment... (the audience) are less infatuated with such tones than the players, they become satiated with the music and let their minds wander, or they walk away.’ 12 But neither is a musician expected to be a coldly rational technician, expert though he may be at making the audience jump through hoops: Emanuel Bach demands a complete knowledge of human affects from a musician: ‘For a musician cannot touch lest he be touched himself; so that, of necessity, he must be able to assume all kinds of affects.’13 Bach was, of course, perfectly aware of the bad effect of playing an adagio drooping over the instrument in tears, and would have wished his audience to be spared the embarrassing spectacle. But what is required is having experienced, and suffered, human affects to be a good musician. Bach’s own posture in playing fantasies is described as rigidly concentrated,14 but ‘in his opinion Music ought to touch the heart, and he
7 ibid., 149. 8 Marpurg, Der Critische Musicus, 184-85. 9 ibid., 117. 10 Marpurg, Der Critische Musicus, 194. 11 ibid., 199. 12 Marpurg, Der Critische Musicus, 217. 13 Versuch, 3rd Hauptstuck, §13, p. 122. 14 Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Briefe eines aufmerksamen Reisenden die Musik betreffend (Letters of an attentive traveller concerning music) (Frankfurt (Main)/Breslau, 1776), pt 2, p. 15. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
never found that this could be effected by running, rattling, drumming, or arpeggios.’15 This defines the intended effect of ‘empfindsam’ music rather neatly: instead of impressing by technical brilliance or stunts, it is to be touching. Many contemporaries, when comparing two eminent violinists of their time, namely Francesco Veracini and Franz Benda, preferred the latter, because whilst Veracini produced great sound and played stupendously, he contrived, with his long bow which he moved very slowly, and which he evidently used to conjure up all conceivable shades of subtlety of expression, to shake his audience profoundly, so that many, were in tears. Human passions were to be excited not by loud instruments and huge orchestras, but by the softest noises of all: Emanuel Bach enraptured listeners on the clavichord, and his dynamics -- often reaching fortissimo - -- do not refer to any absolute level of noise, but to the nuances of dynamic gradations within [42] the possibilities of that instrument. Excitement was derived from the sound of the viol, the viola d’amore, and the barytone. There was a particular preference for sympathetic strings and the specific resonances they produce. Many fortepianos of the time have a mechanism which allows the player to lift off the muting, a contrivance Emanuel Bach appreciated specially whilst fantasying, ,...provided the necessary caution concerning the ringing-on is understood and exercised’.16 Graces played an important part, without obliterating the composition. Forming the individual note was much more important. ‘I am not referring to the pitch of notes; what I have in mind is whether they be loud or soft, and whether they be sustained, detached, tender, rough, harsh, stretching, dragging, leaping, jumping, tearing, jocular, slack, drawn, blurred, frenzied, and the like.’17 This is Marpurg’s attempt at the impossible task of describing sounds. Terms relating to playing techniques, tonal and affective aspects form a colourful mix.18
15 Charles Burney, A General History of Music (1776-1789), 955. 16 Versuch, pt. 2, chap. 41, §4, p. 327. 17 Marpurg, Der Critische Musicus, 215. 18 The problem is an old one. Both in his Fontegara and in his Regola Rubertina Silvestro Ganassi dealt with the flexibility of a tone dependent on the affect. In 1619 Michael Praetorius discussed dynamic variability in his paragraph about the ‘Nurnbergisch Geygenwerck’ (Syntagma musicum, II, 67ff.). He makes it quite clear that the crumhorn ideal did not apply to chamber music, and that the inability of some instruments, above all the organ, to imitate the flexibility of stringed and wind instruments was felt as a deficiency. Thomas Mace's description of the `Pedal' with six different dynamic gradations, showing that what was intended was no terraced dynamics unless an echo effect was desired ---- is another conducive source. For strings and flutes, this would certainly be technically absurd, and it took a view inspired by the organ and the harpsichord to think up something like terraced dynamics. The principal difference between the dynamic flexibility of one note and the dynamic evolution of a line should be borne in mind. The dynamic variability within a larger ensemble was not brought up as a desideratum until well into the eighteenth century, but it is to be assumed that this happened earlier in chamber music. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
The first author to deal with the individual note not simply in descriptive terms, but giving practical instructions, is J. J. Quantz.19 His examples printed in the appendix of his book are discussed note by note in the text, and the dynamic realization is prescribed in minute detail even into the smallest ornamental notes. The degree of strictness which Quantz wishes to see applied to his dynamics is manifested by their seeming extremeness. They suggest continuous dynamics without terraced gradations (The modern signs signifying crescendo and decrescendo had not yet been introduced). The outstanding feature of his adagio is not so much a great dynamic line: in many instances, the line of development points towards a climax note which is then unexpectedly introduced piano, thus interrupting the line. To the attentive listener, this figure comes as a shock, which must not be used too often to prevent it from losing the edge. Evidently Quantz was intent on avoiding a uniform line, which is no great surprise in a composition so excessively ornamented. In order not only to leave these minute structures playable for the musicians, but also comprehensible for the audience, a swift tempo is out of the question. Music Example I: J.J. Quantz, Adagio fromVersuch, Taf. 17-19, bars 1-4, 17-20, dynamics added by Hans Reiners
[43]
19 Versuch einer Anweisung die Flote traversère zu spielen (Berlin, 1752), 149-51. The instrument known as the ‘German flute’ or the ‘flute allemande’ elsewhere has no German name. Quantz uses a Franco-German hotch-potch. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
Tempo rubato was taken into consideration, too. For free fantasies, Emanuel Bach expressly allows it. However, all authors covering this problem advocate restraint. Although it was the desired aim to arouse all sorts of affects in the audience, this seems to have been to the exclusion of the affect of sea-sickness. C, The Composer Melody, the sustaining force of all musical processes, is unthinkable without its proper harmony. Simplicity and lightness are often mentioned in this context, but Bach’s concentration at the clavichord reveals hard work. Numerous of these compositions are in multiple counterpoint, with not a single note to spare. This austerity reminds a little of the seemingly unintentional, highly elaborate randomness of a Japanese tea room. It is more than a coincidence that the asymmetries of Japanese and Chinese painting were the craze of the era. There is also asymmetry in the exterior form. Many sonatas have three movements, slow, swift, swift. Melodic periods are irregular, replacing the traditional dance patterns divisible by four. There seems to be a general fondness of disregarding traditional rules --- an added stimulus for the knowledgeable. Emanuel Bach, whose father’s `deepe skill’ at modulation was notorious, was famous for his smooth transitions into surprising keys. In contrast with Quantz’s leisurely adagio, we find him quite capable of inventing long lines, which meander from one feint cadence to the next until they unpredictably pull up at [44] a close. In spite of their leant-back appearance, they are pervaded by an inherent urgency driving on the movement. Music Example II: C. Ph. E. Bach: Beginning; of the first movement in C major for viola da gamba and basso
Emanuel’s melodies are marked by an easy, casual flow, and he keeps reiterating the term ‘the composer thinking in song’. Strangely enough, although his music can be sung, it is difficult to remember. Bach entertained close friendlv relations with various poets, whose words he set to music, but his songs may have struck even his contemporaries as too complicated. ‘They are beautiful’, wrote Christian Furchtegott Gellert, whose poems Bach had turned into songs, ‘but too beautiful for a singer who is not musical.’20 And Franz Benda, who had been a singer from boyhood up and was celebrated for the most cantabile style on the violin, was obviously not very interested in writing songs.
20 Chr. Fr. Gellert: Letter of March 22, 1758 (quotation from Chr. Fr-. Gellerts Briefwechsel, ed. J.F. Reynolds (Berlin/New York 1987), II, 160). Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
A close connection between musicians and poets does not necessarily entail word painting, which ‘empfindsam’ authors reject. For example, Reichardt distinguishes between paintings that are mere toys of wit, apt to tickle the listener’s ear, and those aimed at expressing and arousing the emotions proper involved in them. An example of the first kind is found where Telemann tries to express the nailing to the cross by pricked notes on the violin... These... must be regarded... as improper. But when Hiller has a wild, whirling symphony played during the hunt, this is not done to depict the raucous gushing of the wind, but to imbue the audience with the same emotions as felt during a thunderstorm.21 Summing up, ‘empfindsam’ music is characterized by learnedness and intentional infringements of rules, the distinction between composition and performance, an instructed audience, and an emotional concept resembling that of the stream-of-consciousness, expressed by the subtlety of execution of the individual note and the melodic lines. Links between musicians and poets are close. Finally, it was of short duration, because its subjects were too high-flying to last.
Good Taste and Nature The term bon goût first appeared during the second decade of the eighteenth century. It is of French origin, and Johann Mattheson met with considerable difficulties trying for an adequate equivalent when translating a French text in 1722.22 For bon goût not only refers to taste, but equally to savoire vivre, [45] cognition, and reason, and it is not derived from education but from nature, which means that good taste is ‘bon goût naturel’ or ‘simple’. Unlike in Aristotelian perfection of nature by the arts, nature and art are brought into opposition. How far can we trust this hypothesis? Naturalness certainly did not mean ‘untouched by civilization’. Instead, it constituted a reaction to the stalked etiquette of Louis ‘HIV. Uncivilized naturalness is fit for barbarians and not much sought after in good society. Therefore, naturalness has to be interpreted as ‘appearing natural’ rather than ‘being natural’, which is quite as artificial as a ‘complex taste’. Evidence to show that naturalness means civilization is supplied by Mattheson’s reference to the Latin word sapere (to taste; hence: sapientia). He states: `This sapere is the same the French call le bon goût, and those who lack it can by no means be named ‘galant’.23 ‘They order’, said Sterne at the beginning of his book, ‘this matter better in France,’ and the better to learn he travelled there. He describes
21 Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Uber die Deutsche comische Oper nebst einem Anhange eines freundschaftlicben Briefes über die musikalische Poesie (Hamburg, 1774), 115. Cf. the English source Charles Avison, An Essay on Musical Expression (London, 1753), 57: ‘the Difference between Imitation and Expression’. 22 Critica Musica (Hamburg, 1722-25), Pars 3. 23 ibid., 250ff. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
conditions in France with good humour and irony, and the fragmentary end seems to indicate that these matters are very far from being invariably ordered better and more cleverly in France than elsewhere. France’s part within the Western European consort was somewhat standoffish, which had already given cause for adverse comment on a number of occasions. In a letter remarkable for its underlying anger, Constantijn Huygens makes a mockery of French self-righteousness.24 Dudley North scoffs at French airs as ‘Sweete meats’ and ‘Confectionary stuff’.’25 The harshest critic is Charles Burney, who blames French lack of interest in influences from outside for the cultural stagnation of that country: ‘But this nation so frequently accused of more volatility and caprice than their neighbours, have manifested a steady persevering constancy to their Music, which the strongest ridicule and contempt of other nations could never vanquish.’26 People in France, on the other hand, were firmly convinced of their own greatness. Even open-minded Frenchmen like Andre Maugars always ended up drawing the same conclusion: ‘Our French birth has endowed us with such advantages over all other nations, that the English can equal us neither in beauty of ‘movements’ and refinement of graces, nor in serenity of melodies in courantes and ballets.27 What is there to set them off that the French can pride themselves on? Is it simply chauvinist stupidity? Maugars makes reference to beautiful movements, graces, and melodies. He was a viol player and had caused a stir in Italy. Where could he have learned to play? At his time, there was no such thing as virtuoso viol-playing in France. French viols had five strings and were huge. They must have sounded terrific in consort, but were totally, unsuited to solo playing. So he could not have picked up the ‘agreeable movements’ there. But what he could resort to was lute music, which was considerably different from that of the rest of Europe. Where other nations were content to reduce [46] part music into lute tablature, a style had evolved in France which abandoned polyphonic structures in favour of distinct melodic fragments and a sophisticated ornamentation. Divisions were out of fashion. The execution moves to center-stage, and the importance of individual notes increases. France was the first country to introduce alternative tunings for the lute. How much refined lute-playing was valued is made clear by the lavish meticulousness Mersenne dedicated to the lute in his treatise, in contradistinction to the briefness in dealing with the other instruments.28 The degree of differentiation in lute music might easily persuade one to class it as ‘empfindsam’, if only it wasn’t short one ingredient: the transgression of rules in order to rouse the passions. This,
24 Letter of Oct. 7, 1660. 25 Roger North on Music, ed. John Wilson (1959), 4. 26 History…, Book 4, chap. 11, p. 966. 27 André Maugars, Response (Paris, 1639). 28 Harmonie Universelle (Paris, 1636), Livre Second des Instrumens, 76-92. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
however, is opposed to the bon goût, which first and foremost forbids exceeding the limits. French dances are well-measured rhythmically as well as harmonically, and in a certain sense the lute with its ‘golden tones’29 may be taken as the perfect symbol of the French musical code: its tone is perfect, but cannot be modified. Evidently this nation, which had supplied its neighbours with the foundations of ‘Empfindsamkeit’ for 200 years, felt little inclination towards the thing itself. Bon goût is not just simplicity. Exuberance is bad form. This put French music into the awkward position of being frozen into its own rules time and again. Hence the controversy with Italian music conducted acrimoniously over various centuries in France. Foreigners choking on the orderliness of French music as on a very sticky sweet (Dudley North) were joined by a number of Frenchmen: ‘It is repulsive to have to play in comedies all the time and to walk on stilts perpetually.30 There are calls for more naturalness.31 Nor is J. J. Rousseau’s concept really natural, but another attempt at arranging things in a certain order. Perhaps Sterne should have rephrased his first sentence like this: `They order every matter in France.’
England Conditions for ‘Empfindsamkeit’ were different in England than on the continent. The period when it flourished coincided with the reign of James I, and - as in Germany - the initial period of really ‘empfindsam’ music is a brief one. Literary culture was at a height, with musicians and poets working closely together. There was little demand in the musical world for dramatic form (which had incidentally led to the evolution of opera in Italy during the same period). This introvertedness put the English into a position of skipping some continental developments, for example, the subservience of music to the words, which had resulted in European instrumental music in what amounts to a declamatory style. Instead, musical development swept from the motet directly to ‘absolute music’, if you will forgive the anachronistic expression. Instrumental music of a high order was thriving, and the fact that this music was not understood on the continent shows how far advanced the English taste was. English composers were fully aware of the importance of their instrumental music. English [47] ‘Empfindsamkeit’ is an aftermath of Elizabethan glory, and its clearest manifestation is the English song. Dowland’s and Danyel’s dissonant drama is replaced by the plainness and delusive simplicity of Campion’s and Ferrabosco’s, which is taken up in the songs of Wilson and the Lawes brothers. Presumably it would have been overridden by other developments, if it had not taken refuge in the houses of the gentry in the wake of the Civil War and Interregnum. That is why later authors such as Thomas Mace and Roger North can still bear reliable witness to an epoch before their time, but still very much a happy memory. Without John
29 Hubert le Blanc, Defense de la Basse de viole (Amsterdam, 1740), 71. 30 ibid., 11; cf. p. 129ff. 31 Blanc, Defense, 26. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
Jenkins’s tutoring, North could hardly have commented so comprehensively on musical subjects that he seems quite up-to-date even now. It is impossible in this article to give a complete history. Assuming that my gentle readers are more familiar with English facts than German ones, I will confine myself to some quotations bearing out the astonishing similarity. At the root of English ‘Empfindsamkeit’ there is the word air. In Italy or France, aria or air mean a light-footed song, often in strophic form. The English term appears to have been wider right from the beginning. Thomas Morley already notes the connection between ayre and the affect of a piece.32 Thomas Campion, in whose music the entwinement of music and poetry is extraordinarily close, compared air with the epigram, and he actually uses the catchword nature: ‘Short. Ayres if they be skilfully framed, and naturally exprest, are like quick and good Epigrammes in Poesie, many of them showing as much artifice, and breeding as great difficulties as larger Poeme.’33 In this way, Campion endows air with just that concise, unstudied perfection which characterizes Emanuel Bach’s work. Furthermore, he distinguishes composition and execution in rather self-assured terms: `To be briefe, all these songs are mine if you expresse them well, otherwise they are your owne.’ 34 As the century went on, air assumed an almost abstract meaning of quality or good taste, so that Roger North wrote (before 1700): ‘Air in Musick, is like witt in poetry, not fixed upon any one quallity, but being taken alltogether gives the recommendation.35 North divides music into composition - performance - reception, the same triad we encounter in the writings of German ‘Empfindsamkeit’: ‘Musick demands not onely utmost spirit and decorum in composition, but litle less than perfection in the performance,... and what is worst of all, the Taste of the Audience is commonly prejudicate and bizearre.’36 His analysis culminates in this sentence: ‘Air is a sort of musick that seems to flow from Nature.37 A. The Audience At the time when North accused the audience of a bizarre taste, English tastes inclined more than previously to the continent. His disapproval is directed mainly at rhythmically straightforward, superficial French dances, to which Charles II liked tapping the beat with his foot.
32 A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597), 147. 33 The First Booke of Ayres (c. 1613), To the Reader. I am most grateful to Hildegard Blum, Rainer Hoveling, and Wolfgang Meyer for their hunt after Campion's works. 34 The Fourth Booke of Ayres (c. 1618), To the Reader. 35 Roger North on Music, 70. 36 Ibid. 37 Roger North on Music, 68. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
A loyal royalist otherwise, in musical matters North does not seem to have [48] been a great admirer of the king. His criticism is well-founded and quite in keeping with ‘empfindsam’ views:38 He was a great contemner of the musick of his father and grandfather’s time and would not admit but he was a competent judge, for said he Have not I ears? - not considering that art grows by use and practice, and is received according as it is understood and known... For who ever was brought to eat caveat, botargo, or ragoust, or to like a horrid and shaddoed St. Jerome of M.Angclo (Caravaggio), or the best musick, at the first proffer? No: sugar sopps, a gay picture, and a jigg, are best liked. In contrast with North’s sarcasm, Thomas Mace’s comment sounds fairly enthusiastic, and could almost be by Wackenroder:39 Musick speaks so transcendently and Communicates Its Notions so Intellegibly to the Internal, Intellectual, and Incomprehensible Faculties of the Soul; so far beyond all Language of Words, that 1 confess, ... I have been more Sensibly, Fervently, and Zealously Captivated, and drawn into Divine Raptures,... by Those Unexpressible... Perswasions,... than ever vet I have been, by the best Verbal Rhetorick. But instead of Wackenroder’s spontaneous feeling, he quotes his ‘Divine Raptures’ as the result of hard work: ‘This Relation will seem strange to many; which I shall not wonder at; because I know there are but few, which do arrive to that Height, and Degree of Experience, and Knowledge, both of the Art, Practice, and Effects of It.’40 Again there is the tripartition into composition, performance, and effect. Haughtiness against the ignorant, which animated Emanuel Bach, appears to have been a ubiquitous trait among the authors of ‘Empfindsamkeit’. The first to put it in writing was Alfonso Ferrabosco, who evidently did not care much about the audience unless it was of exquisite quality. The dedication of his Lessons for 1, 2, and 3 Viols (1609) to the 3rd Earl of Southampton deviates drastically in tone from that customary among contemporary composers of humbly beseeching the dedicatee for his musical patronage: ‘I made these Compositions solely for your Lordship.’ In his foreword, he specifies this to the effect that the rest of the world is granted a deadhead role at best: ‘when beside his, for, and to whom they are, I aym’d at no mans suffrage in the making: though I might praesume, that could not but please others, which I was contented had pleased him.’ Audiences have to make an effort to please such high- minded artists. As was stated earlier, there is a point of perfection in the arts, and a worm whom it passes unnoticed, or the way Roger North puts it: ‘Art hath an enimy called ignorance.’41
38 Roger North on Music, 221. 39 Musick's Monument (1676), 118; see also note 3 above. 40 Musick's Monument, 118. 41 Roger North on Music, 228. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
B. The Performer True, the audience has to make an effort, but there are signs that artists did the same. Knowledge is in demand in equal measure for musicians and listeners. Ben Jonson speaks of ‘iudiciall Care, and as absolute Performance’ of his friend Ferrabosco, and goes on to add, ‘It cannot be Flatterie, in me, who never did [49] it to Great ones; and lesse then Love, and truth it is not, where it is done out of knowledge,’ which presents him in the light of an informed listener.42 Players have to analyse compositions which are not their own. Thomas Mace gives instructions for doing this using the terms ‘Fugue’ (thematic), ‘Form’ (structural), and ‘Humour’ (affective) to subdivide a piece.43 Where North blames mere pragmatic details for bad performance (`bad instruments, missing tune or time.44), Mace tries to give a complete survey which makes it clear that a piece of music does not consist exclusively in what is written down. Bad musicians, whose only aim is virtuosity, make him furious: ‘Many Drudge, and take much Pains to Play their Lessons very Perfectly, (as they call It (that is, Fast) which when they can do, you will perceive Little Life, or Spirit in Them... They do not labour to find out the Humour, Life, or Spirit of their Lessons.’45 In addition, he deals with wrong affects in the wrong places, referring to the bewilderment, or even ennui, of listeners:46 ... when Two, or more Persons have been Soberly... Discoursing upon some Particular Solid Matter...; All on the sudden, some One of Them, shall Abruptly... begin to talk of a Thing Quite of another Nature... Now, Those By-standers, (who have judgment) will presently apprehend, That although His Matter might be Good; yet His Manner, and His Wit, might have been better Approv’d of, in staying some certain, convenient Tune... Just so, is it in Musick. To all accounts, English audiences were not infatuated with out-of- place notes either. The effect of Ferrabosco’s playing must have been fascinating. Unfortunately, nobody mentions his concentrated rigidity at the viol, although the complexity of his lessons for the lyra viol might well lead one to assume it. It is impossible to overlook the cool-headedness with which he plans his works. Ben Jonson says of him, ‘A man, planted by himselfe, in that divine Spheare; and mastring all the Spirits of Musique.’47 Ferrabosco’s lessons dispense totally with virtuosity effects. The technical difficulties of his music remain hidden from the listener. Motives in the upper parts are often plain, flowing, and tender. The inside parts are all the more involved.
42 Hymenaei (1606), Ben Jonson, Works, eds. C.H. Herford and P. & F. Simpson, 11 vols. (Oxford, 1925-52), VII, 232. 43 Musick's Monument, 130ff 44 Roger North on Music, 70. 45 Musick's Monument, 147. 46 ibid., 134ff. 47 Hymenaei, 232. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
Music Example III: Alfonso Ferrabosco, Almaine (No. 12 of the Lessons, 1609), beginning of part III
But is his music ‘empfindsam’? It lacks the complacent leisureliness of Quantz’s adagio, for example. Ferrabosco never stops moving. (Similarly, the era of ‘Empfindsamkeit’ is followed by ‘Sturm and Drang’ during the eighteenth century, - and what other term could cover William Lawes’s music?) Ferrabosco’s affinity to ‘Empfindsamkeit’ is his avoidance of superfluous notes, and [50] his subtle way of breaking the rules. His Galliard no. 25 is an instance of this: the middle section not only has eleven bars, breaking the pattern, but is to be played in common time, although it is written in triple time throughout. Music Example IV: Alfonso Ferrabosco, Galliard (No.25 of the Lessons), part 11 with the original bar lines (in triple time) and my added bar lines in common time.
Ferrabosco’s sensitive and disciplined music eludes listeners lacking in knowledge, or loath to listen to it over and over again. Preference for the ‘touching’ is also found in the famous competition between Thomas Baltzar and Davis Mell (Oxford, 1658), where Baltzar impressed by his brilliant play; ‘yet (Mell) played sweeter, and was a well bred gentleman and not given to excessive drinking as Baltzar was.’ 48 Mell played ‘sweeter’, i.e. his playing went to the heart more, and he was more civilized: he had bon goût. Early in the seventeenth century, sympathetic strings had been invented in England. There are frequent rapturous reports of their echoing effect. Apart from the ‘sweetness’ and ‘unstop’t freedom’49 of these sounds, people savoured a profusion of complicated graces in lute and viol music, which cannot be heard but in small rooms. It is hardly a coincidence that the viol began to get the better of the lute during the first two decades of
48 Anthony Wood, quoted in Bruce Bellingham, ‘The Musical Circle of Anthony Wood in Oxford During the Commonwealth and Restauration’, JVdGSA, 19 (1982), 62ff. 49 Thomas Salmon, A Vindication of an Essay to the Advancement of- Musick (1672), 64. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
the seventeenth century. This change of taste is first documented by Tobias Hume:50 The ‘Trinitie of Musicke’, consisting of ‘parts, Passion and division’, can be as well, or better, expressed on the viol as on any other instrument. ‘Passion’ is a direct translation of the Italian affetto, signifying the subtleties of emitting sounds with dynamic gradations. Bowing techniques must have been thoroughly refined at that time. Lessons grew shorter and shorter and more pointed, and more and more importance was attributed to the individual note, to a degree that North heaves this sigh: ‘One would not think that an element so simple and plain as that is, should admit of so much variety.’51 Like a blase gourmet he concludes, `The greatest difficulty and best grace is sounding a single note well, when it is long, and giving it a due sound when short.52 Thomas Mace endeavours to describe the execution of music precisely. His [51] piece `My Mistress’ is particularly illustrative, because he relates the history of its coming into existence, revealing his state of mind whilst composing it.53 Music Example V: Thomas Mace, ‘My Mistress’, Musick’s Monument, 121
The fugue is a rhythmic-melodic motive appearing in the first two bars, which dominates the rest of the piece. The form is regular (two parts, eight bars each), and the characterizations are in Mace’s highly affective diction: ‘The Fugue, is Lively, Ayrey, Neat, Curious, and Sweet,... The Form, is Uniform, Comely, Substantial, Grave, and Lovely,... The Humour, is singularly Spruce, Amiable, Pleasant, Obliging, and Innocent, like my Mistress.’ There are few, but most effective graces, among them backfalls, stings, and spingers. Mace places particular emphasis on the precise execution of the ‘soft’ and ‘loud’ sections. Especially in the final four bars, the intention seems to be a decrescendo with subsequent crescendo rather than a contrast. But above all he recommends a steady movement: ‘... provided you keep True Time, which you must be extreamly careful to do, in all Lessons: for Time is the One half of Musick.54
50 The First Part of Ayres (1605), Preface. 51 Roger North on Music, 71. 52 ibid., 164. 53 Musick's Monument, 130ff. 54 ibid., 123- 24. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
Other composers were obviously not quite as unanimous on this point. There are some pieces in Sir Nicholas L’Estrange’s hand annotated by Jenkins which make it clear that the composer definitely wanted changes of movement.55 But how far did this liberty go? Even in the case of Jenkins we cannot be quite sure. One of his pupils was North, who takes a determined stand against unsteady movement with a superbly humane argument: ‘... nothing of failure is less excused than missing time; for the audience being once possesst of a current measure, esteem it an injury to be interrupted by any fracture.’56 Even a seafaring nation does not like to be sea-sick. Nevertheless North admits at the same time that not even masters always succeed in keeping time.
C. The Composer ‘What is Ayre?’ North had asked, and his definition of the elusive term is vague, and more like a negative definition: ‘So a peice of musick may be correct but yet dull; and affecting variety, make improper changes; and allowing it to have much spirit and variety, the accord’s may be bad, or somewhat shall faile, [52] which shall make the skillfull say it is not good Ayre.57 Earlier in the century, Campion had laid emphasis on combining well-defined words with the appropriate music made to measure, hence his derision for word-painting: But there are some, who to appeare the more deepe... will admit no Musicke but that which is long, intricate,... and where the nature of euery word is precisely exprest in the Note, like the old exploided action in Comedies, when if they did pronounce Memeni, they would point to the hinder part of their heads, if Video, put their finger in their eye. This is followed by a sentence befitting a musical culture well aware of being advanced:58 But such childish observing of words is altogether ridiculous, and we ought to maintain as well in Notes, as in action a manly carriage, gracing no word, but that which is eminent, and emphaticall. First of all, an air is a tune, but Campion points out: ‘a naked Ayre... is easily censured of euerie care, and requires so much the more inuention to make it please.’ 59 One could also put it in Burney’s words: Melody without its proper harmony is unthinkable. This results in the peculiar balance between composition and execution, which works with intrinsic dramaturgy, such as Dowland’s songs or Italian monodies, can do without. In a final stanza in Latin, Campion tells us that it is by no means easy to make (and play) such pieces of simple aspect, explaining that ayres require as much skill as ‘Heroicall
55 Jane Troy Johnson, How to “Humour” John Jenkins’ Three-part Dances: Performance Directions in a Newberrv Library MS’ JAMS, 20 (1967), 197-208. 56 Roger North on Music, 96. 57 ibid., 67-70. 58 Philip Rosseter and Thomas Campion, A Booke of Ayres (160'1), To the Reader. 59 Ibid. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
Poeme’: Verona owes as much to the lyric poet Catull as Mantua to its heroic poet Vergil. The same criteria as for air, derived from epigram, apply to instrumental music. Jenkins wrote many instrumental airs, but his songs, like Emanuel Bach’s, had little success: ‘His vein was less happy in the vocall part, for tho’ he took pleasure in putting musick to poems, he retained his instrumentall style so much, that few of them were greatly approved.60 Jenkins is a master of asymmetry. He makes periods of five bars appear as regular and natural as a French dance, and the number of bars contained in one section of his airs varies between three and fourteen. Music Example VI: John Jenkins, Ground for 2 viols (GB-Ob NIS Mus.Sch.c.77a&b no. 4) (b)
Music Example VII: a. Alfonso Ferrabosco, ‘Young and simple though I am’ (Ayres 1609, no. 8) b. Thomas Campion, ‘Young and simple though I am’ (The 4tb Book of Ayres c. 1618, no. 9)
In delicacy and subtleness, these musical souffles (which are as destructible by bad performance,) live up to their quasi-provisional
60 Roger North on Music, 345. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
generic name: lessons. They appear in print first by Ferrabosco, whose Lessons are anything but simple. His father incidentally also had ‘deepe skill’, and he seems to have concentrated [53] entirely on the learned and ‘empfindsam’ ideal. His alluring melodies are misleading. Looking closer, we realize how much he must have elaborated. Campion wrote the words and music of ‘Young and simple though I am’. Ferrabosco’s version of the same ditty may be older, as Campion mentions in his Fourth Booke of Ayres that some of the poetry he uses had been used before. Campion and Ferrabosco knew each other, for Campion wrote a eulogy for Ferrabosco’s Ayres (1609). Campion’s composition is almost mechanically regular; by contrast, Ferrabosco’s air is rhythmically adventurous and harmonically inventive. Here the real affect of the text is represented musically: that of a girl whose simplicity is mere show. The girl’s simplicity is as hypothetical as that of the ‘empfindsam’ style. Conclusion In the history books, English music plays a subordinate part, and many English people are totally convinced of the lack of musicality of their nation.61 [54] The English are not a musical people... The people understand music to be a pleasant noise and a jingling rhythm, hence their passion for loudness, and for the most vulgar and pronounced melody. That music should be to language what language is to thought, a kind of subtle expression... that it should range over the wordless region of the emotions,... of all this the English people know nothing. The worthlessness of English efforts is demonstrated in exemplary fashion:62 The Reformation music was all French and Italian; the Restauration music... half French and half German. No one will deny that Tallis, Farrant, Bvrd in church music -- Morley, Ward, Wilbye, in the madrigal, made a most original use of their materials; but the materials were foreign, for all that. The author not only repudiates English musicality in harshest terms, but he denies his countrymen and women any sense of ‘Empfindsamkeit’. He could rely on public opinion, as Europeans were not unduly fond of English music either, and they saw reason to mistrust that country more than ever during the industrial revolution:63 Legend has it there was an English mechanic who, having designed so many most ingenious machines, eventually decided to invent and make a human; in which he finally succeeded, and his product could move and behave quite like a human, it even harboured a kind of human feelings in its leather chest not too different from the customary feelings of the English, it could express its feelings in articulate noises, and the noises of
61 Rev. H.R. Haweis, Music and Morals (New York/London, 1912), 409. 62 ibid., 410. 63 Heinrich Heine, Religion and Philosophie in Deutschland, vol. III. Chelys 21 (1992), article 3
wheels, cogs, screws, and the like inside it which became audible endowed these sounds with a genuinely English pronunciation; in short, the machine, was a perfect gentleman, lacking nothing at all but a soul to make it truly human. But this the English mechanic was unable to perform, and the poor creature, aware of this shortcoming, began to harass its creator day and night with the request to give it a soul. As this request was growing more and more urgent, the artist found it too insupportable with time, so that he set out to escape his own artifice. But the contrivance followed him to the continent by special post at once, caught up with him from time to time, and addressed him in its grating and grunting voice, ‘Give me a soul.’... This is a gruesome tale. How much truth is there in this verdict? True, many English musicians were of non-English extraction, and in the same measure foreign influences were often and willingly accepted and integrated in England. But is that a real disadvantage? The French example illustrates that it is not always beneficial to disregard them. Invariably the same thing happened to immigrant musicians in England: as soon as they were on English soil, they became English. Neither Handel nor Pepusch nor Dieupart nor Jacques Gaultier nor Ferrabosco would have composed the way they did in their countries of origin. The only other country exercising an equally strong mental influence on immigrant musicians was Italy. English thought seems to have moved a hundred years ahead of that of the continent in both a negative and a positive sense. I am looking forward to what the future will offer. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
RUDOLPH DOLMETSCH (1906-1942): THEFIRSTMODERNVIOLADA GAMBAVIRTUOSO
ADRIAN ROSE (written In Memoriam Rudolph Dolmetsch, who died 50 years ago)
During the mid- to late-seventies I made, as an undergraduate student, fairly frequent visits to the Haslemere home of Cécile Dolmetsch, from whom I was taking lessons on both the treble viol and pardessus de viole. On each occasion my lesson would be followed by a delicious high tea, accompanied by agreeable conversation which tended to revolve around such inevitable topics as tropical birds (of which Cécile had a large and brilliant collection then), French culture, not just musical, of the grand siècle (for which we shared a mutual admiration) and, nearly always, the early music revival. The name of Rudolph Dolmetsch, Cécile ‘s deceased elder brother, featured prominently in our chatting, and I quickly began to develop a deep interest in this largely forgotten, and clearly very important, pioneering figure who had undoubtedly played a major role in that revival, which was complimentary yet quite different to that played by his famous and somewhat formidable father, Arnold Dolmetsch. I had also heard about Rudolph from Hannah Hammitt (a charming American lady related to the Kellogg’s), with whom I often shared a meal- table at the then annual Viola da Gamba Summer School held at St Paul’s College, Cheltenham. She had been a recorder pupil of Rudolph’s from 1922 on, and had struck up a close friendship with him and his wife, Millicent, which lasted until Rudolph was tragically lost at sea during World War II. She told me of how in the very early days she was electrified by Rudolph’s performances on the harpsichord, viola da gamba and recorder, and of what a terrific inspiration his playing was to all who heard him. I would listen with eagerness and excited surprise to what she had to say, and soon began to realize that here was an enlightened and natural musical genius who, because of pre-mature death or whatever, had been grossly under-rated and very unfairly forgotten by all but the members of his family, his closest friends and pupils. On occasions, this strange neglect would be explained away to me as deriving from the premiss that Rudolph never reached maturity as a musician; but the remarkable thing is that he did reach a rich maturity on both the viola da gamba and harpsichord, and at an extraordinarily early age. just as the life and poetry of Keats is now revered universally as reflecting a quintessentially youthful visionary genius, perhaps we should also remember the youthful Rudolph Dolmetsch in a similar light for his own ,especial poetry’ of musicianship, so abruptly truncated when the man was Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
barely thirty-six pears of age.1 His later career as composer and conductor had barely begun, but that as a solo viola da gamba player of astonishing brilliance had long since ended, and it is his achievement on this instrument that I should like to focus upon here. [60] Rudolph Dolmetsch was born in November 1906 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the third child of Mabel and Arnold Dolmetsch. At that time ‘AD’ was working at the House of Chickering piano makers nearby, where he produced some of the finest harpsichords, spinets, clavichords and virginals ever made in modern times. Rudolph was named after his French paternal grandfather, and christened in an old Boston church built by the first English settlers, on which occasion he had the great privilege of being held at the font by the distinguished actress Florence Farr, an old family friend.2 He was, according to all accounts, a striking little creature’, ‘sturdy’ and ‘large’, with ‘huge, shining black eyes’;3 but there are conflicting recollections as to the colour of his hair. Mabel Dolmetsch writes of his ‘crop of black hair’;4 and Mlle Gaisser (the Dolmetsch’s French governess at the time), describing Cécile and Rudolph collectively, recalled ‘deux François comme Cécile et Rudolph, aux cheveux presque noirs’.5 But Cecile Dolmetsch herself, in a recent letter, told me that ‘Rudolph’s hair was never black. It was dark brown (with streaks of gold when he was very young) and naturally curly’.6 What is certain is that he was dark, and dark in an Italian, or at least ‘Savoyard’, sense, developing into what can only be termed a beautiful youth, for the word handsome might suggest conventional good looks which he certainly did not have. Judith Masefield (daughter of the poet John Masefield, and a Hampstead friend of the Dolmetsch children) remembered his ‘incandescent eyes’, his ‘mop of hair’, his ‘beautiful appearance’, and later what she considered to be his likeness to Chopin.7 Marco Pallis, who would have first met Rudolph when he was in his early teens, told me of his ‘outstanding appearance’, his ‘square brow’, and ‘Florentine look’, a reference no doubt to those dark and ethereal curly-haired young men that populate the larger paintings of, say, Botticelli (‘Madonna of the Magnificat’) and Fra Fillipo Lippi (‘Vision of St. Bernard’).8 It is, I must say, difficult to visualize Mlle Gaisser’s recollection that ‘I1 faut dire que des ses premières années Rudolph était songeur, pas gai.... si sérieux, pas de joie’9 (Cecile refutes this strongly) particularly in the light of what she goes on to say next in her memoir:10
1 The term is the late Professor Robert Donington’s (personal communication with the author of this article). 2 See M. Dolmetsch, Personal Recollections of Arnold Dolmetsch (1957), 69. 3 Ibid. 4 Dolmetsch, Personal Recollections, 69. 5 Private communication, 1985. 6 Letter to the author dated 26 October 1991. 7 Private conversation with the author, 1985. 8 Ibid. 9 Private communication, 1985. 10 Ibid. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
Un matin, Papa Dolmetsch [AD] emmena Rudolph dans un museum pour etudié certains records de musique. Soudainement, il entendit un petit couplet d’une pièce enfantine repetée encore et encore. I1 se dirigea dans la salle d’ou le son venait, et a son grand plaisir il vit jouant cette melodie sur un claveçin. Serieux, Rudolph 1’etait et il dit: `Père, ne soyez pas fache contre moi. J’aime cet instrument.’ Ce fut pour Arnold Dolmetsch une révèlation. Thus, Rudolph appears to have been born with a profound and innate musicality (music seems to have been the language of his being), and indeed Mabel Dolmetsch, many years later, told Hannah Hammitt of how, as a child, he was able to pick up an unfamiliar instrument and play it on the spot, without any instruction.11 And like all exceptionally musical children, Rudolph began to compose his own tunes very early on, the first when he was only four or five [59] years old. Quickly, he was accompanying his sisters (already proficient on the smaller viols) from the spinet or octavina virginals and in 1911, after the family had moved from the USA to Fontenay-sous-Bois in France, Rudolph (aged five), with Cécile and Nathalie, made his debut at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris. Flanked by the extraordinary and beautiful dancing of Isadora Duncan, with musical accompaniment provided by Arnold Dolmetsch, the children performed musical interludes, including "Lord Zouche’s Masque" and "John, Come Kiss me Now" on the treble viol, alto viol and octavina virginals, followed by numerous encores, such was the delight of the audience.12 And it was whilst Rudolph was accompanying his sisters on another occasion that his father happened to notice that for much of the time Rudolph was not adhering to the notes on the page in front of him, but rather improvising a more elaborate and completely spontaneous accompaniment of his own making.13 By the time that he was nine years of age, Rudolph was regularly realizing figured bass-lines at sight, and accompanying his father in this capacity;14 and for his mother (to whom he was extremely close) Judith Masefield remembered him playing the viola da gamba for her to dance to.15 Any instruction that he may have received on the harpsichord and viola da gamba would have come from his mother and father, but it should be re-emphasised I feel that Rudolph’s amazing performing skills seem to have been, from the outset, quite instinctive, forming an extraordinarily natural and inherent facet of his creative disposition. I gather too that at a very young age he stayed up all night in order to teach himself the recorder, on which he later excelled.16 Rudolph was, as a teenager, sensitive, somewhat highly-strung and rather independent; he kept grass snakes, and at one stage nursed a
11 Hannah Hammitt, unpublished memoir of Rudolph Dolmetsch. 12 Cécile Dolmetsch, conversation with the author, 1991. 13 Dolmetsch, Personal Recollections, 95. 14 Ibid, 115. 15 Conversation, 1985. 16 Judith Masefield, conversation, 1985; La Comtesse de Divonne, private conversation with the author, Paris 1983. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
partridge with severed legs.17 This somewhat annoyed his father, but when he produced a banjo of his own making ‘AD’ was quite furious and destroyed it.18 Tensions no doubt increased between father and son when at fourteen Rudolph, showing considerable but perhaps dangerous initiative as far as ‘AD’ was concerned, formed an orchestra - the first of several that he created in his short life which consisted of pupils of his and other local Haslemere musicians. As well as composing music himself for them to play, works by Handel, Bach, Scarlatti and others were worked upon, and Rudolph was very much in charge, conducting or directing from the harpsichord.19 Rudolph and Arnold Dolmetsch might both be described as visionaries in their own way, but Rudolph’s approach to the revival, particularly later on, involved a more integrated and reciprocal relationship between what he was doing for ‘the rebirth of early music’, and what was going on ‘out there’ on the professional, mainstream, concert platform.20 Rudolph’s standards as a performer were also rather higher than those of his father, and in this respect he became thoroughly professional in the truest sense of the word. ‘Le mieux est 1’ennemi du bien’ was a favourite maxim of Arnold Dolmetsch,21 but for Rudolph the aim was I think for rather more than just the ‘good’ when performing; though I am sure that he realised too that any [60] kind of hypothetical perfection was unachievable, even undesirable. He was, however, not a scholar in the same sense that his father was, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that Rudolph ‘was the most gifted [performer] of the whole family’.22 It appears to have been during the early 1920s that Rudolph Dolmetsch began to achieve his remarkable maturity as a viola da gamba soloist extraordinaire, the period immediately preceding the earliest Haslemere Festivals, begun by Arnold Dolmetsch in 1925. He had been allocated a fine six-string Barak Norman instrument from the family collection, and an exceptionally beautiful photograph exists, in Cecile Dolmetsch’s collection, of him playing this viol, aged about fourteen to sixteen years (Plate 1). In accordance with Mace’s instructions he holds the bow near to the nut and appears to have a wonderfully relaxed left hand position. Marco Pallis, who would have first heard Rudolph play the gamba in about 1919, told me that ‘he produced the most exquisite tone on the bass viol’;23 and in a tribute to Mabel Dolmetsch he had the following to say about him:24 Rudolph was a musician of the highest order if ever there was one, whose personal genius, however, was entirely different from that of his father except in the matter of the superlative nature off their respective gifts. To start with, Rudolph was a string placer second to none, whose agility both on the viola da
17 Judith Masefield, conversation, 1985. 18 Cécile Dolmetsch, conversation, c. 1984. 19 Dolmetsch, Personal Recollections, 139. 20 The term is Marco Pallis’s. 21 Is this from La Rochefoucauld? La Fontaine? 22 Edmund Rubbra, letter to the author, dated 14 October 1985. 23 Private conversation, 1985. 24 M. Pallis, ‘Mabel Dolmetsch Born 6 August 1978’, Cbelys, 5 (1973-4), 60. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
gamba and the cello went with an even purity of tone that could range from the softest pianissimo to a trumpetlike brilliance that electrified the listener at moments of climax.... Hannah Hammitt, who first heard Rudolph at a Dolmetsch family concert in London during the summer of 1922 (he would have been sixteen years old), remembers too his ‘effortless playing of the viols’ which he did ‘so marvellously well’.25 Like Marco Pallis, Mabel Dolmetsch in her book describes, but rather differently, Rudolph’s quality of tone on stringed instruments: ‘He had a very individual tone on the bowed instruments (namely the entire violin family and all the viols), which always seemed to resemble that of the wind instruments rather than the strings.’26 And Robert Donington, a viola da gamba pupil of Rudolph’s from the mid- to late-1920s, paid this tribute in a letter that he wrote to me not long before he died: after writing of the ‘extreme brilliance’ and ‘quite outstanding’ nature of Rudolph’s harpsichord playing, he goes on: ‘Yet more sympathetic on the gamba, if anything, since he had an especial poetry of tone and serenity of bowing ...I remember his gamba playing with especial pleasure: it was so wonderfully firm and at the same time reposeful.’27 Rudolph’s first solo performances on the viola da gamba of real significance were of the large-scale sets of divisions by Christopher Simpson, of those by Norcombe and, from an earlier generation, Ortiz. These division sets, with their built-in technical disciplines, had long acted as basic teaching material for the more advanced viol pupils of Arnold and Mabel Dolmetsch, and also for those of Rudolph who, by the early 1920s, was actively teaching the viol himself. He [61] had, of course, already had the profound discipline of playing bass viol parts in the family viol consort; and what a wonderful consort player he must have been with his firm and reposeful approach that Robert Donington remembered so vividly (Plate 2). But the playing of divisions gave him the opportunity to show off his already dazzling technical skill, and it was these early performances that so quickly aroused the attention of discerning individuals such as Marco Pallis, for no-one had played divisions like this since the seventeenth century. `His performances of the great sets of Divisions by Christopher Simpson’, wrote Marco, ‘as also of Bach’s unaccompanied suites for the cello touched heights of which 1 have never heard the like since.’28 The first Haslemere Festival was held in 1925 when Rudolph was nineteen years old and he, together with the rest of the family, had a major role to play in every concert, in his case mainly as viola da gamba player and harpsichordist. In the second concert, devoted to English music, Rudolph performed the fine D major set of divisions from Christopher Simpson’s The Division Viol of 1659, probably with lute accompaniment
25 Unpublished memoir. 26 Dolmetsch Personal Recollections, 184. 27 Letter dated 22 October 1985. 28 Pallis, ‘Mabel Dolmetsch’. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
provided by his father.29 These divisions had long been a particular favourite, and were performed again and again throughout the 1930s’ festivals, played by either Rudolph or Millicent (his future wife) or by both of them. (Ex. 1) Example I The Ground to Christopher Simpson’s Divisions in D Major as realised by Arnold Dolmetsch (Royal College of Music Library, MS 5971)
In the tenth concert, also of English music, he played the majestic d minor set which, with its frequent chords and rapid passages, is if anything more taxing than the D major;30 and again, this was a set that received regular performances in future festivals. (Ex. II) Example II The Ground to Christopher Simpson’s Divisions in d Minor as realised by Rudolph Dolmetsch (Royal College of Music Library, DIS 5971)
The divisions of Daniel Norcombe31 were performed by Rudolph in the demonstrations during the exhibition hours held at the Haslemere Hall every day from 10.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.32 and he would, of course, have taken part in the two concerts of English consorts for viols, which included such masterpieces as Lawes’s Fantasy and Air a6 (no. 1 in g minor), and Coprario’s Fantasy a5 “Chi pue Mirarvi”. French music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries featured strongly, with Rudolph contributing the taxing viole part to Rameau’s Cinquième Concert,33 and the second viol part in a Suite in G major from Marin Marais’s Pièces d Une et d Deux Violes published in Paris in 1686-9 in which he was joined by his mother, Mabel Dolmetsch, taking the first viol part, and by his most
29 The Division Viol, 58, no. 5 30 Ibid. 31 GB-HA Dolmetsch MS. 11. c. 24. 32 See programme to the first Haslemere Festival, 16. 33 Jean-Philippe Rameau, Pièces de Clarecin en Concerts... (Paris, 1741,/Geneva, 1982). Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
promising pupil, Millicent Wheaton, who played the continuo viol.34 The French solos appear to have been played by Mabel Dolmetsch, and included the exquisite ‘Plainte’ by Marais (an early favourite of Arnold Dolmetsch) and ‘La Regente’ by Antoine Forqueray.35 Bach’s first and second gamba sonatas were also played, the first by Mabel and the second probably by Rudolph; and it was for music of the German and French schools that he would relinquish his six-string Barak Norman for a magnificent seven-string French viola da gamba probably by the late seventeenth- early eighteenth-century maker, Nicolas Bertrand, formally attributed to Carlo Bergonzi.36 (Plates 3a and 3b) This had a terrific, resonant tone, and no doubt gave Rudolph added impetus to explore further the most challenging works of the French viol school, more and more of which began to appear in his programmes. Another of Simpson’s finest division sets, that in e minor, was given in the 1926 festival, together with a further performance of the d minor set, and the Premier Concert of Rameau;37 but Rudolph’s triumph this year appears to have been with the harpsichord, on which he performed three giants from the repertoire: Bach’s Goldberg Variations complete, the f minor harpsichord concerto, and Handel’s magnificent ‘Passacaille’ from the g minor suite; and it was of these performances that Marco Pallis later wrote:38 Amazing to relate, his mastery on the keyboard was not less than that which he displayed when wielding a how, a rarely equalled sense of ‘musical architecture’ characterized his playing both in concertos and in solo pieces of all kinds: the [65] Goldberg Variations, as performed when he was still in his teens, remain unforgettable. The third festival of 1927 opened with a Bach concert in which Rudolph achieved the hitherto unheard-of, by performing not only the great d minor harpsichord concerto, but also the very difficult g minor viola da gamba sonata, two of the most elaborate of Bach’s works for virtuoso performers. Divisions by Norcombe followed in the second concert, and in the fourth he played one of the gamba parts in Bach’s sixth Brandenburg Concerto. It also seems likely that Rudolph would have performed the sonata by August Kühnel in the ninth concert, and in the tenth concert of French music he joined his mother and Millicent Wheaton in another suite of Marais’s Pièces à deux violes, as well as playing the Deuxième Concert of
34 There is a copy of this exquisite volume in the Dolmetsch Library, Haslemere. A photograph of the three of them rehearsing this with Arnold Dolmetsch was published by Marco Pallis as part of his article ‘The Rebirth of Early Music', Early Music, 6,11 (January, 1978), 41- 45. 35 Marais, Pièces de Violes, Troisieme Livre (Paris, 1711) no. 55; Forqueray, Pièces de Viole (Paris, 1747/Geneva, 1976), IIIe. Suite, 16. 36 An attribution to Bertrand seems right, for a six-string pardessus de viole by this maker in the Musée du Conservatoire, Paris, has almost identical carved decoration on its scroll and peg-box. 37 The Division Viol, 62; Rameau, op.cit., 1. 38 Pallis, 'Mabel Dolmetsch'. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
Rameau, and a suite of pieces by the same composer on the harpsichord.39 A great summit was achieved in the 1928 festival, for in the fourth concert of Spanish and French music Rudolph gave the first modern performance of Antoine Forquerav’s virtuosic masterpiece, ‘Jupiter’, [66] which concludes the Ve. Suite in c minor of his Pièces de Viole.40 This was another of the performances that remained ‘unforgettable’ for Marco Pallis, who told me that Rudolph played it ‘magnificently’ and that ‘it wasn’t realized at the time what an achievement this [performance] was’;41 nor has it, I feel, been realized (by the majority) since. Earlier, in the same concert, he had performed the very difficult ‘Gavotte et Six Doubles’ from Rameau’s a minor suite for harpsichord (1730), and after some Scarlatti sonatas, brilliantly played in the next concert, yet another grand climax was to come in the seventh, when Rudolph played Bach’s a minor English Suite on the harpsichord and the fiendishly difficult obligato gamba part to the bass aria in the St Matthew Passion, again prompting Marco to comment ‘no-one has ever played the St Matthew obligato as he did.42 Something more should perhaps be said about Millicent Wheaton (soon to be Dolmetsch), for by now she was playing an increasingly important part in Rudolph’s life, both musically and emotionally; and just as her emergence as a viola da gamba player of considerable proficiency began to really gather momentum, so it also seems that, at the same time, Rudolph’s pre-eminence as soloist on this instrument began to decline, in favour of his increasing interest in conducting and in harpsichord playing, as soloist and accompanist to Millicent. She was the daughter (born 1906) of a Cornish doctor who, after studying the violin initially, took up the cello, receiving some instruction from Hélène Dolmetsch, Arnold’s very musical daughter from his first marriage. She afterwards studied the viola da gamba in Haslemere, first with Mabel Dolmetsch (c. 1923-4), and secondly with Rudolph, who must have suited her admirably as a teacher, for she made rapid progress and was invited to participate in the first Haslemere Festival as a consort and continuo bass violist. By the time of the 1929 festival she was beginning to play an increasingly prominent role, and throughout many of the 1930s’ festivals she took over, as viola da gamba soloist par excellence, not only from Rudolph, but also from Mabel Dolmetsch who had always played a Marais suite each year, or at least a group of the shorter bass viol solos. It was in the Haslemere Festival of 1929 that Rudolph’s orchestra, The Jesses Orchestra, made it’s first appearance, performing in three of the concerts - the second, fifth and eleventh. In this Millicent played the violin, and Rudolph, instead of conducting (Arnold Dolmetsch always disliked conductors) led the orchestra again from the violin, but this was
39 Sonata IX in D major from Kühnel, Sonate ô Partite (Kassel, 1698); D major suite from Marais, Pieces d une et d deux violes (Paris, 1686-9); Rameau, o. cit., 8. 40 Forqueray, op.cit., 34. `La Montigni' (p. 32) from the same suite was another of Forqueray's works in Rudolph's repertoire (GB-RcM MS 5970). 41 Private conversation, 1985. 42 Ibid. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
the one instrument that Marco Pallis felt Rudolph never really took to.43 The orchestra provided the string accompaniment to various concertos, and performed Rudolph’s transcriptions of old Italian and French dances from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as a suite from Handel’s The Alchemist. It seems likely that around this time both the Simpson and Norcombe division sets would have been performed by Millicent, but Rudolph again played the viol in the much-esteemed Cinquième Concert of Rameau; performed one of the unaccompanied suites by Demachy44 and, in the tenth concert, joined Millicent in Couperin’s Troisième Concert from [67] the Concerts Royaux of 1714 which they played on two bass viols alone. They married in December 1929 and were rarely parted (both on and off the platform) throughout the next ten years or so of their life together. They gave recitals all over the country, formed a trio with the lutenist Diana Poulton, gave broadcasts, made recordings; and Rudolph carried on teaching the gamba, as also did Millicent. But he continued in an extraordinary fashion to ‘put her on a pedestal’,45 seeming quite content to accept what Marco Pallis considered to be ‘second-rate’ performances from her,46 compared that is to his own superlative renderings of the repertoire now inherited largely by Millicent. It must be stressed, however, that her standard of playing, under Rudolph’s guidance, assumed increasing grace and refinement throughout the 1930s, so much so that after their Wigmore Hall recital together the Daily Telegraph critic reported: ‘If Sir Andrew Aguecheek played ‘o’ the viol- de-gamboys’ as well as Mrs Dolmetsch does, he must have been a most accomplished gentleman....’, and later wrote of the ‘engaging simplicity and considerable skill’ illustrated by her playing.47 Robert Donington, another of Rudolph’s most distinguished viola da gamba pupils, summarised for me his opinions of Rudolph as a teacher, writing that ‘the problem was he did it all so easily [i.e. playing the gamba] that he hardly knew how he did it; his instruction was naive although his example was inspiring, and that way I learnt a lot from him.’48 It would seem then that Rudolph taught by example,49 and many would perhaps assume that this denotes less than good teaching; but this is the way that the majority of the most brilliant performing musicians have taught and still do, and constitutes another, equally valuable, method of instruction. Surely a practising musician as teacher with consummate performing skills is much the better influence than one with masses of detailed technical advice to offer who is quite unable to put that advice into practice? Rudolph had begun to assist his father with violin, viola and cello teaching at Dunhurst, the preparatory department of Bedales,
43 Private conversation, 1985. 44 Pièces de Viole en Musique et en Tablature (Paris, 1685/Geneva, 1973). 45 Cécile Dolmetsch, letter to the author, 9 November 1991. 46 Private conversation, 1985. 47 Press opinions from a privately printed brochure, Millicent and Rudolph Dolmetsch: Viola da Gamba, Harpsichord and Recorders (Langham Press, Farnham, c. 1938). 48 Letter to the author, op.cit. 49 Marco Pallis, in conversation with the author, confirmed this view. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
Petersfield, c. 1919-21, but with an increasing number of requests for recorder, viol and harpsichord tuition he based himself, throughout the 1920s, at the family home in Haslemere. One of his first pupils at this time was Elizabeth Goble (née Brown), who had lessons on both the viola da gamba and harpsichord, and later achieved some distinction as a regular member of Marco Pallis’s English Consort of Viols. Margaret Donington, sister of Robert, was another gifted pupil of Rudolph’s who was to play regularly in the Haslemere Festival for many years to come, and whose own example as a patient and inspired teacher remains strong. It should not be forgotten either that Cécile Dolmetsch’s husband, the late Leslie Ward F.S.A. (master craftsman and a director of Arnold Dolmetsch Ltd.), also became a skilled viola da gamba and violone player under Rudolph’s guidance. But the sort of industrious enthusiasm that Rudolph’s instruction engendered has been most vividly described for me by Hannah Hammitt, in her memoir and in conversation. She, as already stated, took recorder lessons from Rudolph in the early 1920s, and ‘so began a long and marvellously rewarding friendship’ [68] for her. And when the offer came from Diana and Tom Poulton of teaching facilities for Rudolph at their London home in Highgate, Hannah’s lessons were transferred there, and a new clientele of students began coming. Soon, inspired by Rudolph’s example, she was in possession of a fine Shudi/Broadwood harpsichord upon which Rudolph gave lessons (both to Hannah and other pupils) at her parents’ London home in Cadogan Place off Sloane Street. This, she wrote, was ‘a wonderful time for me ...Rudolph was an instructive teacher, persuasive and inspiring by his example- it was illuminating to study with him harpsichord pieces he was preparing for his concerts.50° By now, Hannah had also acquired a beautiful Richard Meares bass viol, on which she received instruction from both Millicent and Rudolph, and tuition in consort playing followed for her at the Poulton’s and at home. Diana Poulton herself, who did not actually have viol lessons but who was close to Rudolph at this time, remembers how very tactful he was with his teaching comments, a conscious reaction, she believes, to Arnold Dolmetsch’s sometimes severe and even fearsome instruction. Rudolph was encouraging when he taught, and an ‘infectious inspiration’ was conveyed by the regular demonstrations that he gave whilst teaching.’51 He was also very good it seems at cheering those poor unfortunate souls who, during their lessons with his father were, for some reason or another, thrown into despair and tears. Cécile told me of one such occasion when the late Millicent Hales (and friend) came to Haslemere for a viol lesson with ‘AD’, who on that day proved to be particularly critical of their playing. Leaving in a depressed and tearful state, Rudolph intervened with the blessing that they should worry no longer for ‘he [meaning `AD’ of course] would not have told you what he did if he didn’t think that you
50 Unpublished memoir 51 Diana Poulton, conversation with the author, 1985. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
were worthy of it.’52 Arnold Dolmetsch was, however, underneath it all, a ‘magnificent teacher’.53 As has already been suggested, the direction of Rudolph’s career throughout the 1930s tended to be governed by his now very close relationship with Millicent. She did all that she could to encourage Rudolph to pursue his interests in conducting and composition, and this inevitably meant that connections with Haslemere and the festival began to become ever-more tenuous. He elevated her supremely as a solo viola da gamba player, whilst she tended to dictate to Rudolph in an attempt to separate him more and more from his family. Their involvement in the 1930 Haslemere Festival suggests the pattern of things to come, with Rudolph as gamba player always playing a subordinate role to Millicent, but with his performances on the harpsichord becoming increasingly ambitious. By now, Millicent was playing all of the Simpson division sets that Rudolph had performed in earlier festivals, with Rudolph accompanying her at the harpsichord; in the fifth concert (1930) of English intimate music she performed the d minor set as well as joining in the family viol consort. Mabel Dolmetsch performed short French solos by Marais and Forqueray (the `Sarabande La Léon’ )54 in the second and eighth concerts, but the more elaborate works were played by Millicent with Rudolph at the harpsichord or realising a [69] continuo part on the gamba. This was an interesting departure, first tried out in the tenth concert (French music) when the two of them performed the ‘Carillon de Passy’ and ‘La Latour’ by Forqueray on two gambas without harpsichord.55 Rudolph’s adaptations of these pieces survive amongst his papers now deposited in the library of the Royal College of Music in London:56 for the `Carillon’ there are two rough copies of the first and second gamba parts, and a fair copy of the first part for Millicent to use. All parts are heavily annotated with dynamics written in Rudolph’s hand, for he was obviously in charge of the interpretation and performance; but the solo part was played by Millicent and a realization of the figured bass played by Rudolph on the viola da gamba. (She by now was using the French seven-string viol, and Rudolph had gone back to using the Barak Norman.) There are signs that the parts were copied quickly, for all of the printed fingering is left out in gamba 1 and several of the ornaments, but the idiomatic realization is constructed imaginatively with a mixture of two- and three-part chords, single part-writing (to give textural variety), and in the 4e. couplet five-part chords played pizzicato. (Ex. III)
52 Cécile Dolmetsch, conversation. 53 Marco Pallis, conversation. 54 Forqueray, Pièces de Viole, Ve. Suite in c minor, 30. 55 Ibid., IVe. Suite in g minor, 26-27. 56 I negotiated their removal there (with Cécile Dolmetsche’s assistance) after the death of Millicent Dolmetsch. The collection comprises a large group of Rudolph's transcriptions and compositions. There are also manuscripts in Arnold Dolmetsch's hand. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
Example III The opening bars of Antoine Forqueray’s ‘Le Carillon de Passy’ in Rudolph Dolmetsch’s transcription for two solo bass viols (Royal College of Music Library, NIS 5970)
The two parts of ‘La Latour’ are in Millicent’s and Rudolph’s hand respectively, again with most of the fingering left out, but with another skilled realization here mainly of a two-part texture with an occasional three- or four-part chord to add richness. (Ex. IV) Example IV The opening bars of Forqueray’s `La Latour’ in Rudolph Dolmetsch’s transcription (Royal College of Music Library, -NIS 5970)
In addition to these Forqueray pieces, Millicent played (in the second concert) the beautiful ‘Grand Ballet’ of Marais57 and (in the seventh) the third of Bach’s viola da gamba sonatas, both accompanied of course by Rudolph at the harpsichord. On the gamba he performed, probably with his wife and mother, a sonata for two viole da gamba and continuo by Marcello (1750) in the ninth concert, and in the tenth participated, yet again, in another performance of Rameau’s Cinquieme Concert. By the time of the 1931 Haslemere Festival Rudolph and Millicent’s duo partnership was well established, with Millicent’s repertoire becoming more and more varied (as Rudolph’s had always been) presumably under his continued guidance. Her principal performances that year included the ‘Tombeau pour M. de Lully’ and the ‘Folios d’Espagne’ by Marais,58 a suite by Louis de Caix d’Hervelois from his 1731 collections59 a Kühnel
57 Pièces de Violes, Troisième Livre (Paris, 1711), no. 13. 58 Pièces de Violes, Second Livre (Paris, 1701), nos 95 and 20. 59 Quatre Suites de Pièces pour la Viole avec la Basse Chiffree en Partition (Paris, 1731/Geneva 1977). There is a copy in the Dolmetsch Library, Haslemere. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
sonata60 and a suite by Jenkins adapted by Rudolph’61 As an unaccompanied viol duo they performed some divisions by Ortiz,62 and the unpublished Allemande and ‘La Girouette’ by Antoine Forqueray63 with, in each case, Rudolph playing the by now customary gamba realization. Their increasing detachment from Haslemere gave them rather less to do in the 1932 festival, but on three occasions they performed as a gamba duo, in the third, fourth and seventh concerts, their most interesting performance being in the latter concert, of Simpson’s divisions in D major. Rudolph’s transcription of this survives in the Royal College of Music library and the two parts are in his hand. It begins with the two gambas playing the ground in unison, and continues with each viol having two divisions each accompanied by a simple realization of the ground by the other viol; and, significantly, Rudolph has assigned the most taxing of the divisions to himself. Millicent’s part is fingered whereas Rudolph’s is not. (Ex. V) Example V Divisions 2 and 3 from Simpson’s D major set in the arrangement for two solo bass viols by Rudolph Dolmetsch (Royal College of Music Librarv, l\4S 5971)
60 See note 39. 61 RCM Library MS 5971: an arrangement by Rudolph of a suite for two bass viols alone. He has realized the second bass part making an accompaniment from it. See GB-Lbl Add. MS 29369, nos 2, 3, 4 (1 part only); GB-DRc MS D.2 nos 33-35. 62 Amongst his papers at the RCM is the ‘Recercada Tercera’ from Trattado de Glosos Sobre Clausulus (Rome, 1553) for two bass viols (see MS 5971). 63 F-Pn MS. Vm7 6296 Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
[71]
The four remaining performances of these divisions in subsequent 1930s’ festivals were accompanied by Rudolph at the harpsichord, which coincides with what seems to have been his lack of time to devote to the viola da gamba, and his satisfaction with Millicent as soloist. The other interesting duo performance from 1932 was of Forqueray’s `La Cottin’64 which they, paired on this occasion with the unpublished Allemande. Rudolph’s transcription of this is dated May 1932 (just before the festival) and incorporates much additional fingering which [72] is not in the original publication, plus fingering of his own which is different to that published. One must assume, I think, that at this still early date in terms of scholarship, it was not realized how vital it is to follow the composer’s instructions in this respect. Only one of Rudolph’s brilliant recordings made in 1933 for the Columbia History involves him as viola da gamba soloist: a set of divisions by Norcombe in which he is accompanied by Arnold
64 Pièces de Viole, Ire Suite, 3 [sic]. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
Dolmetsch on the lute. The recording quality of the old ‘78’ is of course by no means satisfactory, but it is sufficiently clear to enable us to realize what a complete master Rudolph Dolmetsch was of his instrument, and to make us want to cry out for more opportunities to hear him; but this is now the only opportunity that we have. It is a rendering full of sparkling vitality, yet noble as well, with a crystal clarity of tone in the high passages and a rich resonance low down, where the bass strings ring out like bells. His intonation is perfect, the string-crossing is carried out effortlessly, and not a blemish marts the excellent articulation of the semiquaver passages. Only a little vibrato is used, in the manner of an ornament, and this occurs on the longer notes of the higher passages where it is employed with the greatest subtlety and delicacy. Millicent’s recording of an abridged version of the D major Simpson divisions (with Rudolph at the harpsichord) illustrates her considerable competence, but somehow lacks the finesse and spontaneity of Rudolph’s recording of the Norcombe. They also recorded the first movement of Bach’s G major gamba sonata. It was in about 1936 that Rudolph entered the Royal College of Music as a student of conducting and composition, where he remained for two years as a part-time student; but he continued with his teaching (still at Hannah Hammitt’s flat now in Palace Street) and with the recitals that he and Millicent were giving, including several at the Wigmore Hall in London, and one at the Rudolf Steiner Hall organized by Hannah Hammitt and attended by, amongst others, Ezra Pound.65 Rudolph’s orchestra was by now performing regularly at the Haslemere Festival with him conducting rather than directing from the violin. He would also give the occasional performance on the viola da gamba (always with Millicent) including, in 1933, the Trei~Zieme Concert from Couperin’s Concerts Royaux (1714) for two gambas alone (Ex. VI), Example VI The opening bars of François Couperin’s Treizième Concert transcribed for two bass viols by Rudolph Dolmetsch (Royal College of Music Library, MS 5970: the second viol part is in the hand of Arnold Dolmetsch.)
65 Hannah Hammitt, memoir. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
[74]
the obligato (for two gambas) to an aria from Bach’s Cantata 106 in 1934, and in the 1937 festival he played one of the treble viol parts in a group of Dowland consorts with lute. But his performances on the harpsichord were numerous with his repertoire comprising still more of the virtuoso showpieces, such as the great Passacaille from Francois Couperin’s b minor Ordre, the Italian Concerto of Bach, ‘Le Rappel des Oiseaux’ and other pieces by Rameau (1730), and several of Handel’s harpsichord suites. Millicent’s principal performances were of such works as ‘La Couperin’ by Antoine Forqueray66 and a sonata by Telemann in 1934; Bach’s second sonata and the charming `Le Papillon’ by de Caix d’Hervelois in 1935;67 of the St Matthew Passion obligato in 1937 and in 1939 (their last festival together) of the magnificent D major Chaconne by Marais, edited by Rudolph.68 (Ex. VII) Example VII The opening bars of Marin Marais’s Chaconne in D major (1686) with figured bass realization by Rudolph Dolmetsch. This was one of the last solos that Millicent and Rudolph performed together (RCM Library, MS 5970).
66 Pièces de Viole, Ire Suite, 6. 67 From the 1719 collection Pieces de Viole avec la Basse Continue, Second Livre. 68 Pièces de Viole, Second Livre, no. 64. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
[75]
Rudolph’s career as a fully professional conductor and composer lasted barely two years, spanning the period which began with his leaving the Royal College and ended with the appalling event of his being called up for active service in 1940 as a gunner (of all things) in the Royal Artillery. As conductor he had had some success forming his own London chamber orchestra, working with the LSO, and getting himself recognized by Ibbs & Tillett who became his agents and produced a brochure about him. Of his orchestral compositions a number were performed and broadcast;69 but this stage in his career was, sadly, very much a beginning rather than an end, brutally and pointlessly truncated by World War II. The war did not, however, finally stop him until he was posted overseas, for at Newquay, where he was stationed in 1941, he gave well-attended talks on conducting and harpsichord recitals in a local hotel. He was also to spend a brief period in Wales, where his harpsichord playing made such a lasting impression upon the late Edmund Rubbra (they were in the Artillery together) who, in 1985, told me of how strong his musicianship stays in my mind.70° But in Millicent’s words :71 He was finally posted overseas towards the end of 1942. His ship was not a troop ship and was not in convoy. He was amid specialists in various branches connected with war services: nurses, doctors and even missionaries etc. In Dec. 1942 he was posted ‘missing’. Those who knew him remember him as being a ‘charming person’,72 `gentle’73 ‘full of fun and jokes’,74 ‘unassuming’,‘a perfect gentleman’,75 whom `we always regarded .... as a true heir to his father’.76 In the words, again of Edmund Rubbra: ‘It was a tragic loss to music when one heard of the ship he was in being sunk.’77
69 Rudolph’s compositions for viola da gamba comprise an unaccompanied Caprice written for Millicent in January 1929 (RCM Library MS 5964) and a Concertino for Solo Viola da Gamba and Small Orchestra written (but probably never performed in public), again for Millicent, in April 1941 (RCM Library MS 5963). 70 Letter to the author dated 5 November 1985. 71 Millicent Dolmetsch, unpublished memoir of Rudolph Dolmetsch (1977). 72 La Comtesse de Divonne, see note 16. 73 Diana Poulton, see note 51. 74 Cécile Dolmetsch, see note 52. 75 Lesley Hayley (Haslemere friend of Rudolph’s), telephone conversation with the author, 15 October 1985. 76 Robert Donington, see note 1. 77 Edmund Rubbra, letter to the author, 14 October 1985. Chelys 21 (1992), article 4
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My greatest debt is to Cécile Dolmetsch whose generosity (with numerous telephone calls, archive material, etc.), encouragement and vivid memory have been such an inspiration: to her I am tremendously grateful. I must also acknowledge the help of Carl Dolmetsch, Jeanne Dolmetsch, the late Millicent Dolmetsch, the late Nathalie Dolmetsch, Arnold Cooke, the late [76] Mme la Comtesse de Divonne, Gordon Dodd, The Dolmetsch Foundation, Brenda Fairweather, the late Mlle Gaisser, the late Hannah Hammitt, Lesley Hayley, W.A. Marshall, the late Judith Masefield, Greta Matthews, Richard Nicholson, the late Marco Pallis, Diana Poulton, The Royal College of Music Library, the late Edmund Rubbra, Lionel Salter, and Graham Wells (Sotheby & Co.). Chelys21 (1992), article 5
[79] BACH'SVIOLETTA:A CONJECTURE
JOHN R. CATCH
On three occasions only, in 1724, 1727, and 1734, J.S. Bach wrote parts for an instrument which he called ‘violetta’. Terry discusses its possible identity at some length, but inconclusively.1 It was a fiddle of some kind, of viola range, and Brown tells us that the word sometimes meant ‘viola’.2 But Bach was hardly the man to call a spade a shovel of any complexion, so that his ‘violetta’ is unlikely to have been a viola, a treble or tenor viol, a viola d'-amore, or a viola pomposa, all of which have been tentatively suggested. J.G. Walther in 1732 stated that it was ‘eine Geige zur Mittel-Partie, sie werden gleich auf Braccien, oder kleinen Viole da Gamben gemacht’-‘a fiddle for a middle part; they are made to resemble violas or small viole da gamba’. 3 Now that recalls a group of instruments of viola size, with five or six strings, which are common enough from the first half of the eighteenth century and which are usually catalogued as ‘viols’, having viol-like outlines, flat backs, and ribs finished flush, but with shallow ribs and narrow necks.4 I have seen them long ago at summer schools used as tenor viols. E.J. Payne owned and played a five-stringed one by Elsler of Mainz, dated 1746, and illustrated it in Grove V.5 He considered it to represent the ‘perfected’ form of the tenor viol, tuning it as a tenor viol in G without the lowest string, and playing it in the upward position. But there is not, so far as I know, any positive evidence of how these instruments were meant to be tuned. Although not rare, they seem never to have made a niche for themselves in musical practice and have nowadays no specific name. Walther's description fits such hybrids. Why were they made? Not, I suspect, to provide a new tone-colour; more likely to make life a little easier for the tyro because they would reduce his dependence on his weak fourth finger, and possibly also because they would be rather cheaper to make. Bach had to depend a great deal on amateurs, who would be likely to be attracted by such a novelty, and he took an interest in such things himself. The conjecture is worth an airing because of its possible relevance for some other small puzzles. There are for example the Stradivari designs
1 C.S. Terry, Bach's Orchestra (1932), 127-128. 2 Howard Mayer Brown, ‘Violetta’, The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, (1984), III, 764. 3 J.G. Walther, Musikaliscbes Lexicon (1732). 4 Treble and (more rarely) tenor viols of orthodox character continued to be made up to the middle of the century, although they included one or two oddities such as a seven- stringed treble (and there is an eight-stringed bass; how was that tuned?). But the group I refer to are distinctly different and appear to have been intended to be played in the upward position. 5 ‘Violin’, A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. G. Grove (1889), IV, 278. Chelys21 (1992), article 5
(which he certainly executed) for ‘viole da braccio’ having the bodies of cornerless treble viols but the short necks of violins. It is not beyond possibility that some ‘folk memory’ of ‘viols played under the chin’ persisted up to the time when Fetis began to give concerts using ancient instruments, and misled players of the smaller viols for more than half a century. It would have helped to establish the misconception, which has still some popular currency, that viols were primitive violins. [80] Then there are the somewhat atypical dimensions of the Barak Norman ‘treble viols’. It is many years since I saw the ‘Millicent Hales’ viol, but I remember well its shallow ribs and the additional slope at the bottom of the back. These were supposed to have been later alterations to use it as a viola; but the additional slope was a very good match for the rest of the wood, and I do not recall observing any patching to make up for the small but perceptible deficiency in length which would result from bending the original back a second time. It looked very much like original work. Could these late ‘treble viols’ in fact have been originally ‘violettas’? Chelys 21, book review 1
[81] Andrew Ashbee, The Harmonious Musick of John Jenkins: Volume One The Fantasias for Viols (Toccata Press, Surbiton, 1992), £30. When Ezra Pound in his London days tried to organise a ‘Jenkins Evening’, he was thwarted by the inability of the invited players to supply a single piece by the great man (and enraged when a young pianist hijacked the soirie for a trial of his latest work). Such is the music’s unflamboyant quality that it has crept, not vaulted back into notice; witness the fear voiced only fifteen years ago by the editor of Pound’s musical writings, that its revival had progressed little since Pound’s day. Less perfunctory search would have found that Andrew Ashbee was by then midway through a long rescue operation, of which the results are here assembled, with generous acknowledgement of contributory research. One could not have a more sure-footed guide, pointing back to the habitat from which Jenkins emerged, and leading through the manuscript thickets where the music was haphazardly preserved. The basic material for assessing the career, and the large-scale works of its first half, are combined as never before, probably even in the composer’s own time - he seems to have discarded compositions as you or I mislay socks, books, umbrellas. By laying the groundwork and so raising every aspect of the discussion, this compendious, exhaustively indexed book is unlikely to be superseded, even if there is room for speculation on its basis. Little wonder that Pound knew of Jenkins only through his friend Gerald Hayes (a now neglected pioneer) and, though he persisted in giving him high praise, may never have heard a note performed. Jenkins hampered his own prospects by multiple career blunders. Born too late for the English madrigal school, without entry certificate to the cathedral clique, denied a court appointment till rising seventy, he was not even given appreciably major billing in Playford’s mid-century publications. The dust-jacket’s claim that he was the ‘most prolific and esteemed of English composers’ between Byrd and Purcell is thus a half-truth: he in fact was pipped to the post by both the Lawes brothers when Sir Peter Leycester made out just such a pecking-order for the year 1640.1 Dr Ashbee’s own considered view of him as `the most important and successful mainstream composer of instrumental music’ is borne out in the music. One can still though be lost following the course the mainstream took, in such disrupted times; or fail to see how a classic status implies that Jenkins was influential. Was consort music ever more than a series of unconcerted experiments, petering out in adversity? The work of Jenkins is a main reason for supposing otherwise, since he patently fulfills earlier initiatives. Why then have the inner qualities he embodies been at permanent risk of neglect?
1 Hermione Abbey, ‘Sir Peter Leycester’s Book on Music’, Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America, 21 (1984), 28-44. Chelys 21, book review 1
Such queries seem trivial beside the practical need for his rehabilitation, sponsored by the Viola da Gamba Society of Great Britain in a series of Urtext publications that underly this study. Contrapuntal fantasy, especially in five and six parts, is a luxury good available to all that compels notice. It is the soul of Jenkins’s art; yet for two-thirds of his working career it was obsolescent, [82] nationally as well Europe-wide. Essential aspects of this craft most admired today seemed gothic in the clear light of the high Baroque; for example the key freedom, that gave Roger North some heart-searching.2 Even without North’s affidavit we could credit the unusual care that Jenkins put into his thematic material; yet it is rarely lapel-grabbing stuff, and speaks clearest to those predis- posed to hear. North (again) specifically singled out its defects: the total lack of `fire and fury’, the constant ‘going up and dowse staires’.3 North of course wore the teleological blinkers of his own age, writing about a century after Jenkins’s persona had formed, along traditional lines, at that. The chief elements of his style were present in Alfonso Ferrabosco II (as noted at large by Dr Ashbee), who predeceased him by fifty years. How this character sustained him through vagaries of fashion is possibly incomprehensible without a close look at that sector of society which gave him the support and esteem necessary for the production of music of such serenity and (at times) grandeur. Yet here we are at loss. North, with his professional eye, was fascinated enough by Jenkins’s chameleon role to observe (p. 42) that he had never lowered himself to the level of domestic by articling with patrons - one wonders if this tactic was part of the armour against lack of advancement.4 Life-records are correspondingly scanty. Teasing out a chronology from their intermesh with musical style would have been grim without two uncommon sources of help. North’s writings, vivid as twenty painterly daubs, quite make up for the lack of a portrait deplored by Dr Ashbee. Failing one, it is delightful to be served up a fine portrait of Sir Nicholas L’Estrange. He is vital in a complementary way for dating purposes, through pernickety annotations to his musical copies that have been painstakingly winnowed by Dr Ashbee (we owe their part- preservation seemingly to Charles Burney). North’s word can test one’s faith. What of his story (p. 40) that Charles I thought Jenkins’s lyra viol an ‘inconsiderable instrument’? This from the patron saint of the fantasia- suite, who in another account played ‘exactly well’ on the bass viol? One’s reluctance to suspend disbelief is tempered by the anecdote’s source - Jenkins in person; - unless the wires were somehow crossed, and Charles II was intended. Still, Dr Ashbee’s dispassionate marshalling of the evidence extends to (or withdraws from) the reader the possibilities for
2 John Wilson (ed.), Roger Nortb on Music (1959), 129-30, 179-80; cf. p. 139. 3 ibid., 297, a passage not lingered over by Dr Ashbee. Elsewhere North is less censorious, but the doubts are significant. Over the sureness of Jenkins’s modulations, a repeated theme for better or worse in this study, they are shared by a recent reviewer of a recording of his six-part works (Early Music, 20,3 (August 1992), 50). Gerald Hayes may have had some such reservation in mind when speaking of variability in the ‘standard’ of the five-part pieces (King’s Music (1937), 58). 4 It will be remarked that North effortlessly performed the difficult feat of condescending to Purcell, on just this score of social rank (op. cit., 47). Chelys 21, book review 1
evaluation. The doubt is intriguing that Jenkins operated in East Anglia before 1642; also a belief that he afterwards had more to do than now evident with various patrons, such as Christopher Simpson’s Sir Robert Bolles. From the start though an air of mystery cannot be dispelled. The very birthdate of 1592, calibrated from the aetat of the gravestone, is discrepant with testamentary evidence from both parents that John was a younger son; born after Henry junior, and therefore after 1595. If it is too great a wrench to jettison the first sighting of ‘Jack Jenkins’ in summer 1603, already teaching bass viol to Lady Anne Clifford (a mature thirteen) in the house of the Countess of Warwick, could not a seven-year-old page have been engaged in this chore? (One thinks of Mozart at little more, tutoring the even younger William Beckford on the piano; or closer in time, Abigail Slop on her bass viol, the five-year-old vicar’s daughter recalled by John Aubrey.) Dr Ashbee shows how natural the [83] progression would have been into the milieu of the Derhams, Jenkins’s main patrons in his ‘manly years’. Possibly Sir Thomas Derham senior was more centrally placed than we can now know. It could well be him, rather than his son of the same name, who wrote the paraphrase of job chapter xix verses 25-26 referred to (p. 62).5 But the career prospects may well have been deter- mined already. Jenkins’s sheer invisibility, apart from a walk-on part in The Triumph of Peace (1634), is trying when one comes to grips with the 103 compositions discussed in the second half of the study, which almost all come from the missing years. One feels restive over the admirable caution applied to dating, though Dr Ashbee is willing to be firm when warranted. It is hard to do justice in short to the concise way in which a general survey of stylistic features is combined with a blow-by-blow account of nearly every piece. The aperçu of the composer’s logic as he makes compositional choices from the sheaf of inherited possibilities is cogent, but inevitably disembodied, since the emotional truths behind the procedures are harder to assess. The fact is that the fantasy process is so open-ended that a composer’s feelings are remote, however much one feels ready to impute affective force to particular configurations. As a revealing anecdote shows (p. 87; one of Jenkins’s own), instrumental music by the late 1630s was wholly emancipated from vocal origins a generation before; indeed Dr Ashbee stresses that text-illustration (in fantasy and outright vocal music) was foreign to Jenkins. Yet whether the music asks to be heard as representational, even programmatic, or whether formal considerations are uppermost, is the missing link; the difference between middlebrow and highbrow, to put it loosely. In common with other fantasy literature, the degree to which every piece is obliged to stand singly is amazing. All the evidence given for compilation of the series in four to six parts shows that individual items survived at random and bear no special order. (The North manuscripts interpose a couple of pavans into
5 Henry Lawes set it as a verse anthem, early enough for it to feature in cut-down form in a midcentury song-book (sources discussed in The Musical Times, 127 (1986), 83). The setting by Matthew Locke sports an incipit reminiscent of it. Chelys 21, book review 1
both four- and six-part sequences, perhaps with bearing on dating; but they are not integrated in any way. It speaks little for a composer’s authority to find this degree of disorder, and more for the view that such works were by-products of his normal working conditions.) To such exhaustive treatment little can be added, except perhaps a word about the five-part series, in the publication of which Dr Ashbee was less involved. He notes (p. 258) a clumsiness in line IV of Pavan no. 2, especially bars 4-8. Indeed, line IV is nowhere integrated; it seems to be a later addition to a fourpart (Tr-Tr-T-B) version, comparable with the smaller-scale version of Pavan no. 3. A prior five-part working does exist, but as rather more than a mere inaccurate copy (p. 245). It forms an odd transitional phase before the tenor part had been fully integrated. Thus bar 8 allowed parallel octaves between I and IV (see Example 1); the bass line in strain three actually doubled the added part (bars 27, 31) where now are rests, and had not yet been curtailed to make room for it. These oversights are not unique. Fantasy no. 8 bar 53 is another case where IV doubled 11 in a version preserved by L’Estrange (see Example 2). As he noted, another version (that adopted in print) excises this blemish, at a small cost to the truncated inner line. (This faulty progression escaped notice [84]
in the sole surviving organ part, as printed). Similar failings in detail affect the ‘Series II’ pieces a6, which perhaps were never completely polished. Examples noted by Dr Ashbee could be supplemented by unexpurgated octaves between III and IV, Fantasy no. 11 bars 14-15. The evidence for dating the series (stylistically coherent as it is) later than often assumed can be extended. The distinctive way in which bass parts swap octaves during final chords is reminiscent of William Lawes; and the appearance of cadential passing ornaments at these points (Fantasies nos 10-11, In Nomine no. 2, Pavan no. 2 final cadences; Bell Pavan, end of second strain) is a parallel development. Glimpses into the composer’s workshop are all too rare, and one justification for examining seams in the fabric is that they may offer clues to structural priorities. Much after all of a piece’s success follows the correct pitching of initial thematic material to ensure organic development (Dr Ashbee is frank about the very rare failures). Jenkins matured fast at this; as in the subtle, easily overlooked Fantasy no. Chelys 21, book review 1
12 a6, composed so early as to have fallen off the front of mid-century collections. His genius for complex themes with extractable and invertible components is seen time and again in the analyses. The nature of that material is so vital since it carries, as well as the seeds of structure (through stretto, augmention, etc.) much of the differentiated character of the piece: the code-word for this rich allusiveness appears to be lyricism. If a review stresses so little the sterling qualities of this book and so much an eclectic response, it may be forgiven: every reader acquainted with even part of the repertoire discussed will be inspired by the many parallels and resonances adduced by Dr Ashbee to contribute their mite. The second instalment is awaited eagerly for guidance to how Jenkins transformed the fantasia-suite through his fluency, as he had prolonged the consort fantasy’s vigour, on lines broached in the closing pages of this volume. In leaving the enigma of where the music’s lyrical heart lies, it is tempting to fall back on the best of mid-century verse for [85] its similar ability to merge the available resources. Fantasy no. 3 a6 always brings to mind ‘On a Drop of Dew’ by Andrew Marvell, a younger man who died two months before Jenkins. The combination of aspiring minor sixths and firm downward thirds derived by inversion is a musical counterpart to the meeting of opposites that Marvell found in the captive drop: Restless it roules and unsecure, Trembling lest it grows impure: Till the warm Sun pitty it’s Pain, And to the Skies exhale it back again... Such did the Manna’s sacred Dew destil; White, and intire, though Congeal’d and chill. Congeal’d on Earth: but does, dissolving, run Into the Glories of th’ Almighty Sun. DAVID PINTO Chelys 21, book review 2
[85] Watkins Shaw, The Succession of Organists of the Chapel Royal and the Cathedrals of England and Wales from c. 1538 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991). £50. Readers of Chelys may wonder why I am reviewing a book about the lives of cathedral organists from the Reformation to the present. The answer, of course, is that many of the composers of English consort music were organists by profession. Dr Shaw’s work started as a revision of J. E. West, Cathedral Organists Past and Present (18991921), the standard reference work on the subject until now, but he soon realised that a new book was required, for his predecessor had relied on incomplete secondary sources, variable in quality. In addition to the Welsh cathedrals, Shaw covers the cathedrals in Armagh and Dublin, collegiate churches in Westminster and Windsor, and the most important academic choral foundations, in Oxford, Cambridge, Eton and Winchester. He also retains West’s scheme of chronological sequences, institution by institution, with cross- [86] references to those individuals who served in several places. It is well thought out, easy to use, and seems to he highly accurate. Dr Shaw confines himself largely to the archives of his chosen institutions, and is not much concerned with the secular activities of his organists, nor with the music they wrote. I have therefore prepared some notes on matters of interest to members of the Society, retaining Dr Shaw’s institution-by- institution arrangement; I have not bothered with well-researched figures, or with information available in The New Grove. A few corrections are included.
The Chapel Royal
Arthur Cock (pp. 5-6, 45, 108): presumably the author of the In Nomine by ‘Cocke’ in GB-Ob, MSS Mus. Sch. D. 212-6. Shaw traces him at Canterbury and Exeter; he was organist of the Chapel Royal from March 16001 until his death on 26 January 1604/5.
Canterbury Cathedral
Valentine Rother (p. 46): organist from 1632 until at least 1637; presumably of German origin. The compiler of the earliest layer of GB-0b, MS Mus. Sch. D. 217, a small collection of Caroline virginal music. The manuscript was later used as a commonplace book by Francis Wither (see Cbel)s, 20 (1991), 18). Thomas Tunstall (p. 46): lay clerk 1633-4 and organist from at least 1639 to the Civil War. He probably compiled the keyboard collection GB-Lbl, Add. MS 36661 (‘Tho: Tunstall Aprill the 23th [sic.] 1630’ appears at the bottom of a page), and is therefore likely to have written the unascribed ‘Devision for a trible violl to play wth a virginall’, printed in Musica Britannica, 9, no. 95. The piece does not seem to be in the Society’s Thematic Index of Music for Viols. Chelys 21, book review 2
Thomas Gibbs (pp. 47, 202): organist from 1661 to at least 1663; someone of the same name was organist at Norwich 1664 -6. He (or one of them) presumably wrote the two-part ayres given in the Index from Playford’s Courtly Masquing Ayres (1662). Robert Wren (p. 47): organist 1675-91. He contributed to the bass part-book US- NH, Osborn NIS 515 (see R. Ford, ‘Osborn MS 515, a Guardbook of Restoration Instrumental Music’, Fontes Artis Musicae, 30 (1983), 175). Ford’s thesis, ‘Music and Musicians at Canterbury Cathedral, 1660 to 1760’ (University of California, Berkeley, 1983) is not cited by Shaw.
Chichester Cathedral
Clement Woodcock (pp. 72-73): organist 1570-89. We can now assemble a reasonably full biography of this composer by putting Shaw’s information about his term at Chichester together with Robert Ford’s article ‘Clement Woodcock’s Appointment at Canterbury Cathedral’, Cbelys, 16 (1987), 36-43, which shows that he was there 1565-70. Shaw and Ford both mention a reference to him as a Lay Clerk at King’s College in 1562-3. John Reading (pp. 76-77, 298-99): mentioned as organist in 1675. Shaw makes a valiant effort to sort out the various John Readings who were organists during the Restoration period. One of them may be the main copyist of GB-Lbl MS RM 20.h.9, an important source of consort music by Purcell, Blow, Young, Draghi and Vitali, since a canon on ff. 6v-7 is ascribed to ‘John Reading’ in a form that looks like an autograph signature; he is the only composer not to be given a formal title such as ‘Mr’ or ‘Dr’.
Ely Cathedral
John Blundeville (pp. 100, 159, 318): lay clerk 1670-4; an individual (or individuals) of the same name was a chorister in the Chapel Royal 1661-4, teacher of the choristers at Lincoln 1661-7, and master of the choristers at York 1682-91. One of them presumably wrote the three-part airs given in the Index from GB-0b, MS Mus. Sch. C. 44.
Exeter Cathedral
Theodore Colby (pp. 111, 381): organist 1665-74, also at Magdalen College, Oxford, 1660-4. A musician of seemingly German origin who gave to the Oxford Music School collection (and copied?) [87] the set of consort music GB-Ob MSS Mus. Sch. D. 241-4, 261; in the state he knew it it contained sequences of music by Jenkins and Benjamin Rogers, who succeeded Colby at Magdalen College (See Chelys, 1 (1969), 7-8 and Chelys, 2 (1970), 39).
Gloucester Cathedral Suzanne Eward’s admirable book No Fine but a Glass of Port Fine: Cathedral Life at Gloucester in Stuart Times (Salisbury, 1985) is a notable omission from the bibliography. John Okeover/Oker (pp. 119-20, 286-87, 398): organist 1640-?1661; probably the same person as the composer, organist at Wells 1640--2, 1661-c. 1662. Shaw’s does not take account of John Bennett’s article in Chelys, 16 (1987), 3-11, which contains, among other things, evidence that Okeover was a chorister at Worcester, and was possibly a pupil of Thomas Tomkins. Chelys 21, book review 2
Thomas Lowe (p. 121): organist 1665-6. Scholars investigating the career of Edward Lowe, Restoration professor of music at Oxford, and copyist of much of the Music School collection, will need to know that Thomas and Edward Lowe both came from Salisbury, and were probably related.
Lincoln Cathedral William Boys (p. 157): organist for a few months in 1597. The author of the incomplete pavan by ‘Will: Boys’ in GB-Lcm MS 1145? (See Chelys, 5 (1973- 4), 30).
St Paul’s Cathedral Albertus Bryne (p. 173): the author of The Virgin’s Pattern (London, 1661) was John Bachiler, not Daniel, and the subject was Susanna Perwich, not Perwick.
Wells Cathedral
Matthew Nailer (p. 285): organist 1568-9, also vicar choral from 1563 to at least 1578. The author of the incomplete In Nomine by `Nayler’ in GB-Lbl Add. MS 32377?
Worcester Cathedral
Richard Browne (p. 307): organist 1662-4. Browne was successively chorister, lay clerk (1642), and minor canon (1644) at Worcester, and is therefore probably the author of the pavan by ‘Mr R Browne’ in GB-Ob MSS Mus. Sch. E. 415-8, a source that has associations with Worcester and Thomas Tomkins (see J. Irving, The Instrumental Music of Thomas Tomkins (New York and London, 1989), 143).
PETER HOLMAN Chelys 21, book review 3
[87] M. Alexandra Eddy, The Rost Manuscript of Seventeenth-Century Music: A Thematic Catalog (Michigan, 1989). $25.
The Rost Manuscript, F-Pn, Res. Vm7 673, is one of the most important collections of continental chamber music from the second half of the seventeenth century. It is referred to in virtually every book on Baroque music, yet few pieces from it have been published in modern editions, and there has been a good deal of confusion about when, how, and why it was written. Thus, Dr Eddy’s book, derived from her 1984 Stanford dissertation, is extremely welcome. She begins with a clear and detailed account of the manuscript and its history. It consists of three part-books, two violins and continuo, and it contains more than 150 pieces by nearly thirty named or identifiable composers, led by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (nineteen or twenty pieces), Maurizio Cazzati (eighteen pieces), Tarquinio Merula and Johann Michael Nicolai (six each). Most are trio sonatas, but there are also some four-, five- and six-part pieces, the extra parts crammed onto the pages of the three parts, as well as a few sonatas for violin [88] and continuo, and a few dances for solo violin. Most of what is known about the collection’s early history is derived from an entry in the manuscript catalogue of the library of the priest, composer and music theorist Sébastien Brossard (1655- 1730); Brossard sold his collection to Louis XV in 1724, and it came into the Bibliothèque Nationale by way of the old royal library. He stated that he purchased the Rost collection from the heirs of its compiler, François Rost, a Jesuit priest and canon of Strasbourg, after the latter’s death in 1688, and that it contained music ranging in date from about 1640 until then. But Eddy shows that Brossard, writing years after the event, was mistaken, for Rost did not die until 1696; nevertheless, the concordances with prints so far identified suggest that he was roughly correct about the boundary dates of the collection: the earliest are with Merula’s Op. 12 of 1637, and the latest with the Bolognese anthology of 1680, Scielta della suonate a due v,iolini. Dr Eddy gets into murkier waters when she tries to explain how and why Rost assembled the collection. She point out that most of the pieces are by composers from the Catholic side of the European religious divide, which is not surprising given that Rost was a Jesuit, and that much of it is derived from south German and Austrian repertories, which also is not surprising given that Rost worked in Strasbourg. But it is unwise to make too much of this: many Austrian pieces (including some of those in Rost) are also found in collections made in protestant Europe: in the Düben manuscripts at Uppsala in Sweden, and in English sources. We do not know enough yet about the circulation and transmission of the repertory to be able to decide whether this is a significant pattern (and if so, what the significance is), or whether it is just an accident of survival. My guess is it is the latter, for the pieces that exist in several sources often do in Chelys 21, book review 3
startlingly different versions, with different scorings, number of sections, and, of course, levels of corruption. It is likely that they are the random survivals of a rich and diverse manuscript tradition, now, unfortunately, mostly lost. In the present case, concordances reveal that Rost was frequently prepared to jettison parts to make pieces fit the format of three part-books: works by Schmelzer, Valentine, Rosenmüller, Becker and Bertali exist elsewhere with several viola parts (one or two, unfortunately, have been edited, performed and recorded from the Rost collection in their ‘skeleton’ form), while some of the trio sonatas -- such as those copied from Nicolai’s Erster Theil instrumentalischer Sachen (1675) -- have lost their obbligato bass parts. Despite its fame and importance, the Rost collection is not always a good source, and we need to be aware of its defects, particularly when preparing editions of unique pieces. The bulk of Dr Eddy’s book consists of a thematic catalogue of the collection, well laid out with the opening of each piece in score, and with concordances, modern editions and recordings noted. By and large her search for concordances has been remarkably thorough. I can only add a few, mainly from English sources; they are listed below, together with some minor corrections and comments. With this fine catalogue to guide us, the tasks of editing, studying and performing pieces from Canon Rost’s remarkable collection have been made much easier. [89]
No. 12 [Sonata] ‘Auth[ore]. Casp. Kerll’; also in the anthology Exercitum musicum (Frankfurt, 1660), no. 8, ‘Sonata’. No. 13 ‘Pastorella/Auct[ore]: Schmelzer’: the concordance mentioned by Eddy in Vienna, Minoritenkonvent XIV, 726, no. 79 is actually a separate but related piece for solo violin and continuo by Heinrich Biber (see E. Chafe, The Church Music o f Heinrich Biber (Ann Arbor, 1987), 3-6, 245). No. 15 [Anonymous untitled sonata]: also in Haslemere, Dolmetsch Library, MS II.c.25, no. 22, `Sonata a 2 Viol’. No. 18 ‘Aria/Auct[ore]: Valentini’: based on the-same ground as ‘Coral/Violino solo e Basso/del Singr Wilhelm Brad[e]:’, S.Uu, IMhs 1:10; shortened version in successive editions of The Division Violin, no. 16, ‘A Division on a Ground by Cornel° Van Shmelt’; another set of divisions for solo violin, based on the same ground set a tone higher, is ‘Koraelen’ by Johann Schop, T’Uitnement Kabinet (Amsterdam, 1646), no. 16. No. 24 ‘Sonata Verstimbt/D.P.’: said by Eddy (and in the sleeve notes of the Musica Antiqua Kö1n recording) to be based on the chorale ‘Nun danket all Gott’. In fact, it is a set of variations on the Rugiero ground bass. No. 37 ‘Taüssent Gü1den Sonata /Auct[ore]: Barthalli’: the corrupt version in S-Uu, IMhs 1 :8 is in six parts, not eight; Rost’s title is allocated to a different Bertali piece in S-Uu, IMhs 8:2:2. Chelys 21, book review 3
No. 44 ‘Battaille/Anth[ore]: C.H. Abel’: there is no concordance in Abel’s Ersier Tbeil musicalischer Blumen (Frankfurt, 1677) (surviving violin part at PL-Kj), as Eddy suggests. No. 51 [Anonymous untitled sonata]: also in Exercitum musicum, no. 11, ‘Sonata’, and Dolmetsch MS II.c.25, no. 24, `Sonata a2 Viol’. No. 53 [untitled sonata]: also in Dolmetsch MS Il.c.25, no. 3, ‘Sonata a 2 Viol/Del S’. Gio. H. Smeltzer’. No. 63 [untitled sonata]: Eddy notes the concordance in B-Bc, XY 24.910, attributed to Zamponi and transposed to A major; it is also in Bb in Dometsch MS II.c.25, no. 2, ‘Sonata a 2 Viol/Balthasar Richardt’. No. 70 [Anonymous] ‘Sonata a 2. Violino e Viola’: also in Excercitum Musicum, no. 5, ‘Sonata’. No. 78 [Anonymous sonata] ‘Violino e Viol d’amor’: this piece and no. 110 seem to be the first surviving works for viola d’amore; they are certainly earlier than the usual contender, Partia VII of Biber’s Harmonia artificiosa-ariosa (1696) (see Chafe, The Church Music o f Heinricb Biber, 23--4, 241-2). No. 80 [Sonata] ‘Violino e Viola di Gamba/J.H. Schmelzer’: also in GB-Drc MS D2, no. 18, ‘Sonata 22 a2. violi & viola/ Sm[eltzer]’; Dolmetsch MS II.c.25, no. 15, ‘Sonata a2 Violino e Viol de Gamba/Sr Giov. H. Smeltzer’. No. 81 [Anonymous untitled sonata]: by Philipp van Wichel, Fasciculus dulcedinis (Antwerp, 1678), no. 2; also in Dolmetsch MS II.c.25, no. 8, ‘Symphonia a 2 Viol’. No. 85 [Anonymous untitled sonata]: also in Exercitum musicum, no. 13. No. 88 [Sonata] ‘Auct[ore]: Barthalli’: also in Dolmetsch MS Il.c.25, no. 20, ‘Sonata a2 Viol’. No. 93 [Anonymous untitled sonata]: the ascription to ‘N.N. Romano’ of the concordance in Scielta della suonate a due violini (Bologna, 1680) is not the name of a composer, as Eddy implies. It means ‘N[omen]. N[omen]. Romano - that is, an anonymous Roman. No. 105a Allemande/Violino solo’: also in GB-Ob MS Mus. Sch. F. 573, f. 11v, ‘Steefken Allemande’ (see Chelys, 10 (1981), 40). No. 110 [Anonymous sonata] ‘Viola d’amour e Violino’: see no. 78. No. 151 ‘Partia amabilis Auth[ore] D. Woita Pragae’: apparently for two scordatura violins and continuo, but there is a modern edition arranged for violas d’amore, edited by Cornelius Kint (Leipzig, n.d.). PETERHOLMA N Chelys 21, book review 4
[90] Kevin Coates, Geometry, Proportion and the Art of Lutherie (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991). £25. The idea that musical instruments were consciously and deliberately designed in a mathematically and geometrically sophisticated way is extremely attractive for numerous reasons. For example, if designs generated in this way could be discovered, one could make instruments exactly along the lines intended by revered old master luthiers, free from the distortions of age, use, chance vari- ations in wood and woodwork etc. that complicate the derivation of information from extant old instruments. In Geometry, Proportion and the Art of Lutherie, Kevin Coates presents his own analyses of the frontal outlines of thirty-three bowed and plucked instruments made between the mid-sixteenth and mid- eighteenth centuries. The book is virtually a verbatim reprint of his doctoral thesis including the (extremely sparse) references. Its presentation is immaculate, encouraging a comfortable acceptance of his ideas through an appealing combination of generous layout, fine paper and very attractive drawings by the author. Although the book is not intended to be used as a series of working drawings, it is claimed to present the way that each particular design was generated. It should therefore be possible to recreate these instrument outlines by following the steps of the analyses presented. Unfortunately, this reviewer’s attempts to compare such reconstructions with published drawings failed because the book gave insufficient data to complete the reconstructions. 1 Some sections of the outlines are not covered by the analyses and other details are presented without justification. Also, Coates finds no proportional significance in the positioning of the fold in the back of viols or in the depths of the ribs of viols or any other instruments (p. 32), although there is no reason to suppose that the front elevation would be designed in isolation from the rest of the instrument. It is just about possible, using information in the text supplemented by information implied in the drawings (and a certain amount of good will, as this involved reconciling a disagreement between text and drawing) to construct an outline for the 1564 Andrea Amati violin. However, when this was superimposed on the published drawing of the instrument, there were too many discrepancies to support a claim that Coates’s design scheme produced that outline. The constructed outline was a similarly good (i.e. bad) match with a nearly identical 1574 violin. This might have been reassuring, but the various violin outlines in the book show a similar degree of congruence when compared with each other. In other words, the discrepancies between an instrument and its putative analysis are indistinguishable from the
1 Of the viol by Henry Jaye 1667 and the violin by Andrea Amati 1564. For comments on the accuracy of published plans, see M. Fleming, ‘Viol Drawings’, Cbelys, 18 (1989). Chelys 21, book review 4
variation among instruments by different makers. It is inevitably possible to ‘analyse’ instrument outlines in Coates’s manner by employing the degree of imprecision allowed in this book, especially when perceptions of the instruments that maximise their apparent mathematical richness are employed. Holding this book next to one of the instruments concerned (Hill no. 9) failed to convince me of the accuracy of the drawings (which are [91] claimed to be more accurate than photographs) on which the analyses are based. Coates cites Begola Rubertina as evidence for the proportional determination of bridge position, but ignores the overwhelming iconographical evidence that bridge position was subject to considerable variation and the fact that Ganassi regarded the bridge as a movable object. Although Ganassi and other writers supply proportional rules for fret placement, they add that the final adjustment is by ear. This exemplifies how, while geometrical or mathematical constructions may be used in the course of designing an instrument, the final result may deviate from such rules. Old instruments invariably exhibit considerable asym- metries when the shape of the left half of the front (or back) is superimposed on the right half, or when the front is superimposed on the back. It follows that any scheme that can be used to construct accurately the outline of one half of one plate cannot be similarly adequate for the other three quarters of the total body outline. This, together with the effects of age, damage, alteration etc., means it is essentially impossible to analyse the outline of a centuries old instrument with the confidence necessary to deduce a geometrical design process, assuming such a formal method was used. Coates only considers the frontal aspect of instruments, ignoring the materials, archings, thicknessing and methods of construction, which are all significant aspects of instrument design. In thus limiting his brief (‘acoustical considerations will not arise’, p. 2) Coates forgets that the most aesthetically satisfying or mathematically rich outline is neither necessary nor sufficient for the production of a fine musical instrument. Other matters which are ignored or glossed over include: whether a design would generate the outline of an instrument or the mould, the fact that individual makers had many models, sometimes with very slight differences, the degree to which extant instruments exactly reflect their makers’ intentions or even maintain their original dimensions, the level of accuracy and symmetry desired by individual makers, all previous investigations along similar lines, and all other possible explanations of the design process. Although there are many aspects of this book that give cause for concern- the stated (rather than argued) assumptions concerning the intentions of luthiers, questionable accuracy of data, arbitrary analytical procedures and so on - it nevertheless deserves praise for raising some of the issues of musical instrument design, at least to the level of the coffee table. MICHAEL FLEMING Chelys 21, music review 1
[92] John Coprario, The Two-, Three- and Four-Part Consort Music, edited by Richard Charteris (Fretwork Editions FE4, 1991). Complete set, (39.00. String parts only, ,(;22.00. Score only, (22.00. John Coprario, Fantasias of Four Parts, edited by George Hunter (Northwood Music JC-4, 1990). $12.50, invoice in pounds sterling for English customers, available from George Hunter, 1108 W. Stoughton, Urbana, Illinois 61801.
There is no doubt that Coprario is one of the most important composers of the Jacobean period. His output is both wide-ranging and innovative, and was to prove influential to succeeding generations, especially in the realm of fantasia-suites. With this publication Dr Charteris realises ‘the virtual fulfilment of a longstanding ambition to publish the complete instrumental music’ of Coprario (which he had transcribed and edited for his doctoral dissertation). Here are the six duos for treble and tenor viols, the ten three-part fantasias and the seven four- part fantasias, together with a three-part almain and three of the fantasias with ‘great dooble bass’, the latter formerly attributed to Orlando Gibbons. Where the five- and six-part works are mostly given Italian titles, these works for smaller ensembles are purely abstract. Nevertheless, they do still retain the madrigalian concept of a succession of imitative ‘points’ as their main structural feature. Coprario was a very competent composer, even if sometimes his work is a bit routine, and all these pieces are beautifully crafted examples of their kind. For the most part they are also technically relatively undemanding. Members of this society have long had the opportunity to play the three-part fantasias in Michael Hobbs’s edition (Supp. Pub. No. 33), although Dr Hobbs did not collate all the many sources. They form an ideal introduction to consort playing, with a work like Fantasia no. 9 seeming to have been written for just this purpose. The two-part fantasias on the other hand are both more exposed for the individual player and more lively. Madrigalian traits seem strongest in the four-part series, with sharper contrasts between sections. In addition to the characteristic fugal imitations here, there are some lovely harmonic passages involving chromatic shifts (e.g. in nos. 3 and 5) and a variety of textural colours. Documentary evidence for attributing the three ‘great dooble bass’ pieces to Coprario is meagre, but seems likely on stylistic grounds. In any case it is good to have parts for these remarkable pieces, surely conceived for the professional musicians in Prince Charles’s household. There it seems probable that the treble part would have been played on the violin. Chelys 21, music review 1
In his preface Dr Charteris takes the opportunity to record the latest research on Coprario’s life and work, besides presenting the usual commentaries on the sources and music texts. The score itself is in the beautiful calligraphic hand of the late Joy Dodson. No organ parts are included, although Stephen Bing made one for six of the four-part fantasias. However, it is unlikely that Coprario himself envisaged the provision of such a part, and competent players could improvise one from the score - as Peter Holman believes was common practice at the time. The additional incipits (apparently for organ) in the great dooble bass’ fantasias are given in both score and bass viol parts. Four string parts are [93] provided, all computer-set and nicely laid out to avoid page-turns. Players will have a certain amount of juggling to do if they are dipping in to more than one of the series of pieces at a single sitting, since ‘Viol 2’, for instance, is strictly the second part down - whether this be alto, tenor or bass, but maybe this is all part of the fun of consort playing. For those whose purses (or requirements) prefer separate units, George Hunter provides an alternative. I reviewed his edition of Coprario’s two- part fantasias in Cbelys, 20 (pp. 64-65) and now welcome the companion set in four parts. He points out that these pieces ‘with their spritely figuration, more frequent use of melodic skips, and their wider compass of the parts -- were certainly conceived for instruments’ and differ somewhat in character from the more vocal style of the five- and six-part fantasias. An interesting table of ranges for the parts leads George to suggest various alternative instruments and tunings to cope with the tessitura of the Tenor I line. Score and parts are barred in 4/2, with occasional bars in 6/2 ‘so as to bring the beginnings of important sections into alignment with the barlines and thus clarify the musical structure of the fantasias.’ All these are computer-set and are excellently done, with a full textual commentary printed at the back of the score. ANDREW ASHBEE Chelys 21, music review 2
[93] Eight Consort Songs by William Byrd, edited by Stewart McCoy and Bill Hunt from a set of part- books in the British Library (Fretwork Editions FE3, 1990). Complete set, £16. Score and viol parts only, £12. Score only, £7.50. Lutebook only, C7.50. Lutebook and score, £13.50.
Here, under one cover, are riches indeed: eight of Byrd’s most attractive consort songs in a performing edition for voice, four viols and lute. The contents include the majestic, major-mode “Rejoice unto the Lord” and “The man is blest”, the exquisite “Out of the orient crystal skies”, and - de rigeur in anthologies of such works - Byrd’s fine elegy on the death of Thomas Tallis, “Ye sacred muses”. In an unusually full introduction, the editors provide much information on the background of the pieces and on the manner of their performance which is essential reading for anyone intending to perform them. The music is well edited (I spot-checked a number of readings against a microfilm copy of the part-books and found not a single error), with meticulous attention to detail. The commentary largely reflects this, though a fuller statement of the editorial policy would have been helpful, especially for readers wishing to know about the treatment of underlay in the part-books. (Are slurs used? And how much, if at all, is text indicated by repeat signs?) Particularly laudable is the editors’ policy, by no means universal, of listing redundant accidentals and notes which carry ‘no accidental’ in the source(s), thereby reducing potential ambiguity. The quality of origination is excellent - especially that of the parts, which are printed clearly on strong paper, with plenty of space between the staves, and [96] convenient page-turns. The score shares some of these qualities, but the scoresize within the page would have benefited from small-scale reduction. As the title-page proclaims, the editors have used for their primary source a set of part-books (London, British Library Add. MSS 29401-5) once owned by the Norfolk squire, Edward Paston (d. 1630). In effect, however, as far as the edition is concerned, this is treated rather as a unique source, for no variant readings are given, and players in search of them are referred to Professor Philip Brett’s score edition. (It would have been helpful to include a simple, perhaps tabular, list of all sources, before the commentary.) For a source to be ‘primary’ it must have outstanding qualities such as exceptional accuracy vis a vis other sources, or a date and/or a provenance which place it closest to the composer and his circle. These are questions which could perhaps have been touched on in the introduction. It focuses instead on Paston’s lute intabulations and, though the editors make due acknowledgement to Fellowes and (more importantly) to Professor Brett, they nowhere say why Paston’s musical text justifies this status. For most of the time, this is exemplary; but there are just a few occasions where Brett’s edition provides superior readings, of which performers should certainly be aware, and I list them here to save Chelys 21, music review 2
them the trouble of thumbing through Brett’s edition (Consort Songs for Voice & Viols, Collected Works of William Byrd, 15 (London: Stainer and Bell, 1970). The pieces in the Fretwork edition are not numbered, so all references here are to page-number in the score; bar; part (reading downwards); symbol (tied notes and rests are counted). Fortunately, thanks to the enlightened policy (for 1970!) of barring in regular quanta of four minims, Brett’s bar-numbers agree with those of the new edition, and I give in brackets the page-numbers of both text and (where there is an entry) commentary in Brett’s volume. The three most important are:
‘Rejoice in the lord’ 5150; I; 4-5. Underlay: ‘-reign’ sung to crotchet and minim (41). ‘“Mv mistress’“ 11; 40; 1; 4-41; 1; 3. Underlav: ‘beast’ (minim a’), ‘knocked’ (minim b4’), ‘out’ (minim c’“), ‘his’ (minim eb’“ semibreve d’“) (135). ‘“Fair Britain isle’“ 20; 38; 1; 2-39; 1; 3. Underlay: by following Brett, and reserving the unimportant ‘the’ for the last two crotchets (f~’-e’), undue emphasis on this word is avoided (127, 176). There are, in addition, two occasions when Brett’s versions are, at least, worthy of equal consideration though here, I admit, the choice is less clear: ‘Rejoice in the Lord’ 6: first-time bar. Here, as both editions point out, the source text is corrupt, and the new edition is exemplary in including (at p. vii) a transcription of the source text. Its suggested solution to the five-part jumble presented by the source (always a difficult editorial decision) works very well, though in Brett’s version the B-Rat chords are shorter by a semibreve and perhaps better preserve the anticipated rate of chord change (compare, for example, the progression from bar 51 to 52). “Fair Britain isle” 18; 35; I; 5-7. Underlav: ‘the’ can be sung to two quavers, rather than crotchet and two quavers (126-7); or, alternatively, ‘the’ may be placed on the preceding crotchet f, as Brett’s commentary points out (127, 176). But these are minor criticisms, and I readily recommend this new edition for its [95] practical presentation and for its contents. One slight problem may be the price of the complete set (which includes a lute part incorporating the solo voice), which some potential buyers might think is rather high for only eight pieces. But a set of score and parts for performance by voice and viols only is available at a cost of £12, and the editors advertise a useful supplementary service of `parts to order’, including parts without barlines - an entrepreneurial initiative of which Elizabethan printers would have been very proud.
IAN PAYNE Chelys 21, music review 3
[95] The Collected Works of Henry Butler. Edited E.V. Phillips (A-R Editions, Inc.).
The Collected Works of Henry Butler is a welcome addition to the early seventeenth century repertoire for the viol: twenty works comprising thirteen sets of divisions, two preludes, and a sonata for bass viol and continuo, and four pieces for violin, bass viol and continuo. But before you rush out to buy a copy, be warned: Butler was noted as a virtuoso performer on the viol, and, compared to Simpson’s, his divisions are much harder to play and considerably longer, the first set having no fewer than forty-nine. The score, which includes an extensive preface and an excellent commentary on the basso continuo realization, is clearly laid out but uses the great stave for the viol part, which I personally detest - although I suppose that many keyboard players would find its familiar layout easier to read. I was relieved to find the solo part written in the more usual bass, alto and treble clefs. The realizations are excellent, but it does seem a little odd to have Mr Ashworth spend what must have been a very long time realizing repeated harmonic sequences for the division sets when I doubt whether many keyboard players asked to accompany fiendish Butler divisions would be unable to realize the ground for themselves. The viol part is legibly printed (even if rather small), but I do think that page turns for the long sets could have come at the end of a division, rather than in the middle, which is too frequently the case. The editorial procedure seems very thorough, but there are three decisions I would contest: In the a minor divisions (no. 14) Miss Phillips has put in a 5/4 bar to include all the notes as they appear in the manuscript, extending the last note of the ground in the fourth division by one crotchet. It seems to me more likely that the last note of the fourth division is in fact the first note of the fifth, they both being the same note, and that this would make a more satisfactory solution. In the sonata in e minor (no. 16) the prelude-like opening has had two demisemiquavers added in three consecutive bars so as to make a consistent eight in each group; but I see no good reason why the groups should not begin as sextuplets, becoming groups of eight in the fifth bar where double stops are introduced. The editorial slurs at this point are also consistent with the opening, but make the double stops unplayable. Lastly, I find the approximate proportional relationship which appears in two of the sonatas a rather strange innovation. The four works with violin (which could in fact be played with a treble viol) are on the whole far more approachable than the division sets which would present a formidable challenge to the most able player. In conclusion, I suggest that only the ambitious should follow Simpson's advice, buy this publication, and be prepared for many hours of hard practice. Chelys 21, music review 3
ALISON CRUM Chelys 21, book review 4
[96] Bass Viol Technique by Margaret Panofsky (PRB Productions). £25. Available from Ms Olga Morgan, Seaforth, Vicarage Road, Hailsham, East Sussex BN27 1 BN.
At 354 pages, spiral-bound, this is a hefty volume of technique for the viol, so get yourself a stout music stand before you begin. It aims to provide students of the viol with a comprehensive text when no teacher is regularly available, but could also be used in a solo or group class. Unlike the organic approach of teachers such as Charbonnière and Crum who use sixteenth- to eighteenth-century material to illustrate their teaching points, this book has only technical exercises, a sort of pale Sevcik for the viol. The very thoroughness of Bass Viol Technique is daunting- all you ever wanted to know about playing the viol, but were afraid to ask. I cannot fault the book for its exploration of every possible angle on holding, bowing and fingering the bass viol, although I don't personally like the use of cellistic terms of half position, second position etc., when related to the viol. No stone has been left unturned in the analysis of slurred bowings, shifts of position, string crossings, alternative fingerings, balance of bow- holds, movement of the left hand thumb, general posture, position of the knees, flexibility of the wrists, arms and elbows, double stops, extensions, scales, arpeggios trills, etc., etc. And yet that is precisely the main criticism, it is all technique. The viol is an instrument of the past (with a small and not always idiomatic repertoire added in the latter part of the twentieth century). To take 354 pages to write about the instrument with literally hundreds (yes, hundreds) of photographs of the author in every conceivable viol-holding position, yet never once to acknowledge the existence of Ortiz, Ganassi, Simpson, Mace, Loulié, Marais, Rousseau, et al., nor ever to provide one single piece of music written by a composer of the past 500 years, seems to be a curious omission to say the least. (1 don't count the seven word reference to Simpson on page 318; apparently he wrote measured trills in his Divisions.) There are occasional mentions of `the viol's glorious repertory', but no indication of what it is nor where to find it. The many hundreds of musical examples in this book were seemingly composed either by taking a simple sequence of notes and running them through every possible scale and rhythm imaginable, or by thinking of a technical problem and writing dull exercises to explore it. This is an admirable form of masochism, and in the hands of a good composer could be successful; but so much obsessive, undiluted technique can only recommend itself to the most dogged and single-mindedly [97] unimaginative student. The basic problem of the book is that it seems like a description of a one hour instructional video, with exact written details of every movement and technique covered by the film. I think I would have preferred a video. IAN GAMMIE Chelys 21, music review 4
[97] First Solos for Treble, Tenor & Bass Viols, selected and edited by Alison Crum (O. U.P.).
These three volumes are the playing supplement to Alison Crum's viol tutor Play the Viol which gives a full account of techniques from beginner to advanced. Whereas the main book is designed mostly for study and reference, these books are designed solely for the music stand and cover a player's development from the first easy tunes to simple divisions on ballad tunes. The same sixty-five pieces appear in all three books, transposed suitably for each instrument into treble, alto and bass clefs respectively. Each book has a short supplement of three or four pieces in a different clef as an introduction to that versatility of reading which -a viol player will eventually have to acquire. In fact, a bass player anxious to improve sight reading in the alto clef would do best to purchase the tenor book, and tenor players could likewise use the treble and bass books to improve their familiarity with those clefs. The music is evenly graded throughout so that a steady progression (and hopefully improvement) is achieved as players work their way through the book. Each piece has a paragraph or two of instructions with details of fingerings and bowings as well as warnings of potential pitfalls. Reference is made to the more detailed discussion of technique in Play the Viol but these three books are complete in themselves, and each musical item, is fully discussed and explained as it occurs. It is good to see that the author avoids any overtly dogmatic approach and is willing to suggest alternative bowings or fingerings, even if one in particular is recommended as the preferred reading. Viol players should always retain this flexible approach to tucking in an extra quaver or playing a note in a higher position rather than changing strings, etc. The repertoire presented here ranges from fourteenth-century Machaut to the eighteenth-century Compleat Music Master, although it is the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pieces which predominate. The emphasis is entirely on unaccompanied tunes, with examples drawn from lute songs and chansons as well as from instrumental sources such as Playford, Hely and the Manchester lyra-viol collection. Two thirds of the pieces are of English origin, but five other European countries are represented, and players will be well versed in a variety of musical idioms by the time they complete the book. This is an important addition to the teaching repertoire; it is clear, well conceived, and should be used by all who are beginning or have recently begun to play the viol. IAN GAMMIE Chelys 21, music review 5
John Ward, Five In Nomines for Four Viols, edited by Virginia Brookes (PRB Publications 1992). £8, score and parts.
John Ward’s five In Nomines which survive in the Parisian source, F- Pc MS Rés. F770 were described by Virginia Brookes in the 1987 issue of Chelys (vol. 16, pp. 30-35). These pieces are now available from PRB Publications on good quality paper with clear, well-spaced notation in both score and parts. This edition includes two copies of the plainsong chant, one with a treble clef and the other with an alto clef, which are useful for varied playing groups. In all the parts there are cues at the beginning where necessary and these should ensure a confident start. Some of the part-writing is quite elaborate rhythmically but the consistent minim pulse grouping and the generous spacing facilitates the reading of such passages. This is music for experienced players: the counterpoint is busy and often shaped in chordal patterns demanding quick string-crossing. When played in numerical sequence they seem to become increasingly more intricate in rhythm, with the final bars of no. 5 moving towards a rhythmically exciting climax. There are moments of lyrical charm and each part has an equal share of interest and vitality. Whilst they may lack variety in harmony and modulation, their liveliness will give much delight to players. RITA MOREY Chelys 21, music review 6
[99] John Jenkins, Two- Fantasia- Suites for Treble Viol (Violin, Bass Viol and Organ, edited by Andrew Ashbee (PRB Publications). £15.
As if it were not enough to mark the Jenkins quatercentenary with the first volume of his long-awaited study The Harmonious Musick of John Jenkins, which concentrates on the fantasias for viols, Andrew Ashbee has whetted our appetites for its sequel by bringing out an edition of two fantasia-suites which display a different, more extrovert side of the composer’s work. This is the pair of fantasia-almaine-corant suites - one in a minor, the other in g minor - which in Gordon Dodd’s Thematic Index of Music for Viols make up VdGS (Field) group IV. At some point during Charles I’s reign Jenkins seems to have decided to modernize and invigorate the courtly fantasia-almaine-galliard suite form established by Coprario by substituting a corant as the final movement, and by greatly increasing emphasis on the ‘division’ element. These were not improvised [100] divisions, but took the form of swift-winged exchanges between two string instruments (involving liberal use of demisemiquavers and, for the bass viol, occasional multiple stopping) in the middle section of the fantasia, followed by a dizzying variation on each of the strains of the two dance movements. As Dr Ashbee points out in his introduction, the fact that both of these suites were copied out by Jenkins for Sir Nicholas L’Estrange’s music library suggests that they date from no later than the mid-1640s. On the other hand they may have been quite newly composed when Royal College of Music MS 921 was being copied: they are the last music in their fascicle, and bear cross-references to an ,original’ autograph manuscript. The g minor suite in particular contains music of a boldness- distractedly jagged melodic lines, poignant dissonances such as suspended diminished sevenths - which one more usually associates with William Lawes. Handling the surviving sources poses some tricky editorial problems, but Dr Ashbee brings to this task a wealth of experience, sensibility and finesse. To begin with, all that remains of the three partbooks which Jenkins compiled for L’Estrange is the treble book, Ashbee’s source J (Royal College of Music 921), and it is sometimes illegible because of the corrosive effect of the ink on the paper and has lost the folio which contained the end of the a minor suite. Source U (Uppsala University Library, Inst. Mus. hs 79.1) contains the treble and bass viol parts of both suites in the bold hand of Gustav Düben (c. 1628-90), a prominent musician at the Swedish royal court; it provides the only complete source of the string parts for the g minor suite, but the organ book is missing. The remaining three sources - B (British Library, Add. MS 31423), D (Durham Cathedral Library, Music MS D.2) and H (Haslemere, Dolmetsch Library, MS ll.c.25) - are all post-Restoration copies, and although they include the whole of the a minor suite they give only the fantasia of the g minor suite. Consequently the organ part for the last two movements of the latter has to Chelys 21, music review 6
be editorially reconstructed. It is particularly unfortunate that nothing survives of J’s organ book, for (as the editor observes) it probably gave a ‘complete (if thin) organ part’ on two staves for these suites. D uniquely preserves such a written-out keyboard part, but for the first movement of the a minor suite only; for the two dance movements and the g minor fantasia it reverts to supplying merely a basso continuo. B and H give a figured bass line for all four movements. Dr Ashbee has resisted any temptation to fill out D’s organ part for the a minor fantasia with editorial amplifications, and his own realizations and reconstructions for the remaining movements preserve the unity of style by adopting a generally spare texture with a good deal of shadowing of the strings. Occasionally one may feel he has been a little too reticent, and a certain amount is left to the intelligence of keyboard players. In the final bar of the a minor fantasia, for example, editorial figuring of a # in the organ and continuo parts would have made clear how the cadential seventh in bar 90 is expected to resolve. Performers who follow the printed figuring will need to be alert for an unsignalled change from major to minor in the course of bar 60, and they are trusted to reconcile for themselves contradictions between the written-out organ part [101] of D and the figuring of B (in bars 65 and 69, for instance). But it was a happy idea of the editor to include, besides score and organ part, a continuo part with some supplementary figuring, suitable for keyboard or theorbo. I have noticed a handful of places in the a minor suite where my own readings differ from Dr Ashbee’s, and it may be useful to list these here:
1. Fantasia Bar 7, organ right hand: D has g#’ as well as b’ on the second minim, a telling harmonic touch. Bar 32, organ left hand: I believe there is a misreading of D’s bass line here, which runs dotted crotchet f, quaver e, minim d. (It thus corresponds exactly to the readings of the continuo parts B and H.) Bar 43, bass viol: the final semiquaver is e’ in D as well as the other three sources. Bar 54, bass viol: penultimate note e’, not f. Bar 56, bass viol, fifth note: C? also gives a here. Bar 90, organ right hand: though the tail of the second g#’ is the wrong way round in D, the manuscript seems to indicate a conventional ; 3 cadence, with the a’ and the second b’ both minims. (This may be merely a printing erorr in the score, for it is correct in the separate organ part.) 11. Air Bar 19, treble: first two notes both quavers. Bar 49 and 67: the figuring is shown as 5 6, which follows D, but in the varied repeat (bar 67) this conflicts with the string parts. B has 6, which makes better sense. These are minor details, however. The edition is yet another excellent step forward in the growing representation of Jenkins in print. The printing itself of both score and parts is most elegant, and their use should bring much pleasure. CHRISTOPHER D.S. FIELD Chelys 21, music review 7
[101] Etienne Moulinié, Fantaisies a quatre pour les violes, edited by Maurice Rogers (Practical) Musicke, 1991). £4. Available from Maurice Rogers, 89 North Street, Hornchurch, Essex RM11 1ST.
As maître de musique to Louis XIII’s brother, Gaston D’Orleans, Moulinié composed a variety of sacred music and airs de tour. The three fantasies for four viols included in his fifth book of airs (which were dedicated to Monsieur de Toulouse and printed in Paris in 1639) embrace the spirit of that repertory, with allusions to airs, such as in the final section of the bass part of no. 3, and dance rhythms. They also belong to a tradition of seventeenth-century French ensemble music for viols which includes the works of Du Caurroy, Le Jeune, Métru, Du Mont, Louis Couperin, Charpentier, Sainte Colombe and, finally, Marais. Maurice Rogers, a member of the Viola da Gamba Society, has produced his own no-nonsense, unbound edition of Moulinié’s lively and harmonically adventurous fantasies, which will be welcomed by consort players eager to expand the boundaries of the traditional English repertory. Although Rogers provides only parts, they are strategically supplied with alphabet markers, which, together with the frequent changes of time signature, should ensure that no one gets lost. Each fantasy part fits comfortably on a single page and is clearly reproduced. [102] The fantasies, together with vocal works by Moulinié, have been recorded by Les Arts Florissants (HMA 190 1055) and La Fenice (ERAT 2292 45774- 2). JULIE ANNE SADIE Chelys 21, music review 8
[102] Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite in g Minor (BMV 993), transcribed by Paul Pedersen with an introduction by Mary Cyr (Calliope, 1991). CAN$10.
The tradition of transcribing the works of J.S. Bach is among the most time-honoured. As Peter Williams has pointed out, many of Bach’s works exist only in transcription.1 BWV 993, which survives in Bath’s own hand, is itself a lute transcription in g minor from his early years in Leipzig of the remarkable c minor scordatura cello suite (BMV 1011), composed about 1720, while he was employed at Cöthen. Equally time honoured is the lute’s mentorship towards the viol, and so, in view of the provenance of the lute version and the greater affinity between the lute and viol idioms (as compared with the cello and the viol, which is largely restricted to the matter of range), it seems altogether appropriate in this case to acknowledge the authority of the lute transcription. The lute version is perhaps almost as well known as the cello version, having been recorded by a number of guitarists including John Williams (CBS CD 42204), as well as lutenists, distinguished among them Konrad Junghänel (DHNI RD77097) and Nigel North (ANION CD-SAR23). Paul Pedersen has preserved the textures of the lute version wherever possible. The plucked bass notes, achieved on the viol with lefthand pizzicato, nicely, contrast the bowed notes above while echoing the lute. The lute version also provided him with the master’s own ornamentation, often delightfully French in character, though he did revert to the cello version in matters of slurring and phrasing. With the exception of the rather too spaciously set out prelude, requiring no fewer than three page turns, the movements fit on single or facing pages. Pedersen has also made a transcription in d minor of Bath’s popular (and oft-transcribed) solo flute partita in a minor (BWV 1013) for viola da gamba, in the same series (1990). As Lucy Robinson wrote in Chelys last year (1991, p. 70), transcriptions of works of this calibre and public profile are undoubtedly welcome and appropriate additions to the viol repertory, and certain to find their way onto concert programmes. JULIE ANNE SADIE
1. ‘Bach’s g minor Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord BWV 1029’ Early Music, 12 (1984), 345-54. Williams writes about John Hsu’s d minor transcription of that sonata for two violas, two bass viols and continuo, in the spirit of the sixth Brandenburg Concerto (Broude Brothers, 1984). The Tavernor Plavers have since recorded another transcription, by Duncan Druce, in c minor (EMI CDS7 49806-2). Chelys 21, music review 9
[103] Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Due sonate a viola di gamba e basso. Brussels Conservatorium bibliotheek MS WQ 5634, introduction by Greta Haenen (Musica-Alamire, 1990). $8.
After languishing in the shadow of J.S. Bach’s three sonatas for harpsichord and viola da gamba, interest in C.P.E. Bach’s remarkable music for viol (H510 and H558-9) is at last gaining momentum. Until quite recently, scholars such as Eugene Helm and Hans-Gunter Ottenberg took almost no note of these attractive and demanding works, or in the distinguished viol player in the service of Frederick the Great, Ludwig Christian Hesse (1716-72), for whom they were probably composed. Not that this is an uncommon phenomenon: a similar fate befell the music of Marin Marais’s son, Roland, who has yet to be rehabilitated, and despite the tireless efforts of Lucy Robinson, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Forquerary is still not widely acknowledged as the primary composer of the 1747 Pièces de viole. A year ago, at the International Viola da Gamba Symposium at Utrecht, Johannes Boer read a paper on the three manuscript sonatas by C.P.E. Bach, of which two - for viola da gamba and continuo in C and D major - belong to the Brussels Royal Music Conservatory Library and have been dated 1745-6. The third is actually a true sontata for viola da gamba and harpsichord in g minor, dated 1759. Boer usefully placed them in the context of other works being composed for the viol at the Potsdam court by Christoph Schaffrath and the Grauns (Johann Gottlieb and Carl Heinrich). Alamire have produced reasonably clear facsimiles - if slightly reduced - of the C and D major sonatas in score, originally copied in two different hands (neither of these that of the composer); the viol parts are notated an octave too high, in treble clef. Their presentation, in loose leaves of high- quality paper encased in a folder, is attractive and evocative of the originals. All that is really lacking is a critical report. For matters of performance practice, viol players are advised to consult Bach’s invaluable chapters on ‘Embellishments’ and ‘Performance’ in part I of his Essay in the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments (1753). All three sonatas have recently been recorded by Siegfried Pank (CAPR 10- 102), Paolo Pandolfo (TC 1020501) and Charles Medlam (HMC 90-1410), who played from these facsimiles. JULIE ANNE SADIE Chelys 21, music review 10
[103] Chamber Music of the 18th Century for Lute, Transverse flute, Oboe, Violin, Cello & Viola da Gamba (Musica-Alamire, 1990). $62.
A facsimile of the complete B-Br MS II 4089 (originally part of Fétis’s library) might not seem the most urgent of publishing projects. The manuscript consists of separate fascicles each containing a single work; five are for solo lute while the remaining ten are all - or nearly all - for obbligato lute with a variety of other instruments. (There is an anonymous Concerto or Galanterie in D major [103] which consists only of a violin and bass part without any indication of what the complete instrumentation might have been.) The compositions all have an Austrian provenance. There are works by Corigniani, Meussel, Kuhnel (Johann Michael or August), Blohm, Pichler, Bleditsch and Laufensteiner. These are not composers you are likely to hear on Classic FM; only the last mentioned warrants a separate entry in The New Grove and in most cases Pohlmann (Laute, Tbeorbe, Chitarrone, 5th edition, 1982) lists the works here as their only known compositions. Therein, though, lies the main interest of the publication. Music for lute and viola da gamba from eighteenth- century Germany and Austria is still, I suspect, rather under-represented in modern editions. This facsimile helps fill out the picture. Some of the music is interesting (and some is emphatically not - I have in mind a stupifyingly banal ‘Siciliano’ in a Blohm Concerto for lute and violin). One of the more attractive works is the Concerto a4 in g minor by Meussel. The editors, though, do not seem to have examined their material very closely. The Meussel is described on the lute part as being for ‘Liuto, Viola di Gamba [sic.], Hautbois overo Violino, e Violoncello’. In her brief introduction, Greta Haenan (author of the invaluable Das Vibrato in der Musik des Barok) accepts this description at face value and comments that there are `separate violin and oboe parts with clear differences, partly, but not solely due to differing instrumental techniques’. The cover of the lute part is wrong, however: it is not the oboe and violin which are alternatives, but the violin and viola da gamba. (These are exactly like the alternative viola da gamba and second violin parts in the Rameau Pièces de Clavecin en Concert.) In the face of this lack of scrutiny of what they have produced, I cannot feel confident that the publishers have really thought through their reasons for producing this collection in its entirety - including the manifestly incomplete works. As one would expect in an eighteenth-century Austrian collection, the lute tablature is French and for a thirteen-course instrument. The various copyists turned out a professional-looking product and the standard of reproduction in the facsimiles is good. PETER WALLS